Rijksmuseum

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 89.8 cm × width 30.8 cm
sight size: height 88.5 cm × width 29.2 cm
frame: height 98 cm × width 39 cm

Technical notes

The original support is a single vertically grained oak plank, 0.1-0.2 cm thick. It was the exterior of the right wing of a triptych, which was separated from the interior and transferred onto a thick oak panel consisting of two vertical planks. Two cross-bars are attached to the back. The unpainted edges (0.8-1.0 cm) and the presence of a barbe indicate that the panel was painted in the frame (painted surface: 88.2 x 29 cm). The whitish ground is visible through the paint layers and along the edges. A sketchy underdrawing indicated the trees and branches. Faint traces of it appear in the infrared reflectogram assembly. Sections of the sky were then painted broadly, leaving spaces in reserve where the foliage would be painted in greater detail. The leafy branches in the background were quickly brushed in with broad strokes, using a very dark green. A mixed green was used for the boughs closer to the viewer, and finally short dabs of lead-tin yellow, impasted paint for the leaves on the branches closest to the viewer and in full light.

Scientific examination and reports

X-radiography: Mauritshuis, no. 843, 1985
condition report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 24 October 2005

Literature scientific examination and reports

Bruijnen in The Hague 1997, p. 17; Ainsworth 1998, pp. 237-45

Condition

Poor. The paint layer is badly abraded in the sky. There is discoloured retouching along a vertical crack from top to bottom at the left and along a 45 cm long crack at top right. The green glazes have become brown, and the varnish has yellowed slightly.

Conservation

conservator unknown, 1930 - 1932: New York. panels sawn in two; restored
J.J. Susijn, 1985 - 1987: complete restoration
Marvelde (Frans Hals Museum) , M. te, February 1997: Discoloured retouchings were improved.

Provenance

…; collection Navarrese family, Spain, as Hans Memling (the intact triptych);¹ by descent to Ramon F. Urrutia, Madrid, 1920 (the intact triptych);² …; from the dealer Duveen Brothers, Paris and New York, to Jules S. Bache, New York, 1928 (the intact triptych);³ the detached outer wings returned to the dealers Duveen Brothers, Paris and New York, after 1930;⁴ from whom, fl. 5,000, to the museum, as a gift from the Fotocommissie, 1932;⁵ on loan to the Mauritshuis, The Hague, since 1948

Object number: SK-A-3135

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum

The artist

Gerard David (Oudewater c. 1460 - Bruges 1523)

Gerard David’s tombstone in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk in Bruges states that he was born around 1460 in Oudewater near Gouda. It is assumed on stylistic grounds that he trained in the northern province of Holland, perhaps in Haarlem, but there is no documentary evidence to support this. On 14 January 1484 he enrolled in the Bruges guild of image-makers and saddlers, to which panel painters also belonged. He was elected second warden of the guild in 1488, then first warden (1495, 1499) and dean (1501). From 1494 to 1523 he lived in a house in Sint Jorisstraat, which he shared with Antheunis Huyghe, who was probably his assistant. At some date between 1497 and 1509 he married Cornelia Cnoop, the daughter of the well-known goldsmith Jacob Cnoop the Younger. In 1507-08 he joined the prestigious Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Dry Tree, whose members included nobles and prosperous burghers. He enrolled in the Antwerp painters’ guild in 1515 but continued to live in Bruges. He and his live-in assistant Ambrosius Benson became embroiled in a lawsuit in 1519-20, and he was actually imprisoned for a while in 1520 for refusing to return to Benson two packing cases containing drawn designs by Adriaen Isenbrandt and Aelbrecht Cornelis. Other documents show that he was also involved in legal disputes at the end of his life. He died on 13 August 1523.

Some 60 works are attributed to Gerard David, almost all of them religious scenes, chiefly individual panels with popular subjects like the adoration of the Magi, the Passion or the Virgin, but there are also triptychs and polyptychs. He left only two known autonomous portraits.⁶ Although none of his works is signed, a few are documented, among them the two monumental scenes making up The Judgement of Cambyses, his earliest dated paintings, for which he received payment from the Bruges city authorities in 1491 and 1498.⁷ Jan de Trompes commissioned the Triptych with the Baptism of Christ from him before 1502,⁸ and he also worked for foreign patrons. He painted the Cervara Altarpiece in 1506 for Vincenzo Sauli for the abbey church of San Girolamodella Cervara near Genoa.⁹ In 1509 he donated his last dated work, the Virgo inter virgines now in Rouen, to the Carmelite convent of Sion, not far from his workshop. He and his wife are depicted on the left and right as the donors.¹⁰

David’s earliest works, among them the centre panel of a Nativity Altarpiece,¹¹ were mainly influenced by painters from Haarlem like Albrecht Ouwater and Geertgen tot Sint Jans. After his arrival in Bruges in 1484 he was increasingly inspired by his southern Netherlandish predecessors, such as Jan van Eyck and Hugo van der Goes, and by his fellow citizen Hans Memling. He also maintained close ties with the miniaturists of Bruges, especially Simon Bening, and there is evidence that they exchanged designs with compositions and figures. This, together with the fact that his widow paid the miniaturists’ guild a sum of money for funeral expenses after his death makes it likely that he also worked as a miniaturist.

References
Van Mander 1604, fol. 205r; Weale 1895; Von Bodenhausen 1905; Winkler in Thieme/Becker VIII, 1913, pp. 452-53; Friedländer VI, 1928, pp. 71-113; ENP VI, 1971, pp. 77-98; Van Miegroet 1989; Miedema II, 1995, pp. 249-50; De Vos in Turner 1996, VIII, pp. 550-54; Ainsworth 1998; Beaujean in Saur XXIII, 2000, pp. 428-31

(Vanessa Hoogland)

Entry

See the entry on SK-A-3134

Literature

See SK-A-3134.

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Collection catalogues