Object data
oil on panel
support: height 23.9 cm × width 19.6 cm × width 17.9 cm
thickness 1.0 cm
depth 3.2 cm
Master of Delft
The Virgin and St John lamenting over the body of Christ
c. 1500 - c. 1510
Technical notes
The support is a single vertically grained oak plank, 0.3-0.8 cm thick. The panel is a fragment that has been cut from a larger composition and bevelled on all sides. There is a vertical indentation at top right on the reverse, which is probably the remains of a hole for a dowel approx. 0.6 cm long, which proves that originally there was another plank on the right. Strips of wood approx. 0.8 cm wide were later added to both sides of the panel. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1388. The panel could have been ready for use by 1399, but a date in or after 1413 is more likely. The white ground and the paint layers were applied up to the edges of the support. Infrared reflectography did not reveal an underdrawing. The figures of the Virgin and St John were reserved. The paint layers were generally applied thinly, although the contours of the green garment worn by St John are a little thicker. The lower part of the composition, underneath the Virgin’s arm, was largely painted over, possibly to cover parts of the larger composition to which this fragment once belonged. The upper part of a man’s head is visible in the lower right corner.
Scientific examination and reports
- condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 1 March 2006
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 17 August 2006
- infrared reflectography: M. Wolters / M. Leeflang [2], RKD/RMA, no. RKDG500, 9 January 2008
Condition
Poor. There are numerous paint losses and discoloured retouchings, especially at the top and bottom. The lower part of the painting, underneath the Virgin’s arm, is largely overpainted, as are the added strips of wood on the right and left sides. The varnish is discoloured.
Provenance
…; sale, Mr * (†, Rotterdam), Dordrecht (A. Mak), 1 October 1918 sqq., no. 23, as School of Rogier van der Weyden, fl. 1,000, to the dealer J. Goudstikker;1 his collection, 1919-in or before 1922;2 …; ? art dealer, Rotterdam, 1932;3…; collection Dominicus Antonius Josephus Kessler (1855-1939) and Mrs A.C.M.H. Kessler-Hülsmann (1868-1947), Kapelle op den Bosch, near Mechelen, 1936;4 donated, with xx other objects, by Mrs A.C.M.H. Kessler-Hülsmann to the museum, 1940
Object number: SK-A-3325
Credit line: Gift of Mr and Mrs Kessler-Hülsmann, Kapelle op den Bosch
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Master of Delft (active c. 1490-1520)
The Master of Delft was named by Friedländer in 1913 after the wings of the Triptych with the Virgin and Child with St Anne by the Master of Frankfurt, which is now in Aachen.5 The wings show the Burgomaster of Delft, Dirck Dircksz van Beest Heemskerck (1463-1545), with his four sons and St John the Baptist, and his wife Geertruyd with her daughters and St Mary Magdalen. Since their eldest son Dirck Dircksz is depicted as a Carthusian monk, Vogt recently suggested that the wings were painted on the occasion of his profession as a monk in 1514 in the monastery of St Bartholomeusdal near Delft.
A number of religious triptychs, mostly dated in the first decades of the 16th century, are attributed to this master and his workshop by Friedländer and later authors. The most representative and best preserved triptych in the group is the Triptych with Scenes from the Passion of Christ,6 which was probably made for the Premonstratensian foundation Koningsveld near Delft, which includes a view of the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft and is dated 1510-12 by Campbell. According to Bangs, the Triptych with the Crucifixion in Cologne was commissioned by the prominent Kievit family for their chapel in the St Laurenskerk in Rotterdam around 1520.7 Other generally accepted attributions are The Vision of St Bernard in Utrecht,8 and the Triptych with the Virgin and Child and Saints (SK-A-3141).
His works display the influence of Cornelis Engelbrechtsz, and he also incorporated quotations from the early prints of Lucas van Leyden. According to Friedländer, the sources of the master’s style must be sought in woodcut illustrations, such as Le chevalier délibéré (published in Gouda, c. 1486-88). Friedländer also suggested that the artist designed the woodcuts for the life of St Lidwina published in Schiedam in 1498.
References
Friedländer 1913; Schretlen 1922; Friedländer X, 1932, pp. 45-52, 127-28; Hoogewerff I, 1936, pp. 577-81, II, 1937, pp. 388-96, V, 1947, pp. 123-24; Vollmer in Thieme/Becker XXXVII, 1950, p. 78; ENP X, 1973, pp. 30-33, 75-76; Châtelet 1981, pp. 155-57, 237; Hutchison in Turner 1996, XX, pp. 655-57; Campbell in coll. cat. London 1998, pp. 322-33; Vogt 2002
(J.P. Filedt Kok)
Entry
This scene of the mourning St John and the Virgin, which is abruptly truncated on all sides, must once have been part of a considerably larger composition with the Lamentation of Christ. A ladder is being placed against the cross behind the figures, and at the very bottom of the panel is Christ’s left arm, which the Virgin is holding. When the painting was acquired in 1940, its fragmentary nature had been concealed by overpainting this arm and the head at bottom right with St John’s green robe. That overpaint was removed before 1960.9
The composition of this fragment is broadly reminiscent of that on the central panel of Cornelis Engelbrechtsz’s Triptych with the Lamentation of Christ in Leiden, and of his later version in Ghent.10 It is difficult to say whether the Amsterdam fragment was part of a self-contained panel with a Lamentation or whether it was the right wing of a triptych with a Crucifixion. In the London triptych by the Master of Delft, the Lamentation is combined with a Deposition.[The National Gallery; illustrated in ENP X, 1973, no. 60, pls. 42-44.] One argument against the fragment being part of a triptych wing is that the reverse is not painted, and probably never was. In view of the fact that the painting is on a vertically grained plank, it seems likely that it comes from a larger, vertical composition.
Similarities in the colouring with soft pastel tints, the painstaking execution, the kind of eyes and the grieving face argue for an attribution to the painter of the triptychs in Amsterdam (SK-A-3141) and London. What is odd, though, is that this rather poorly preserved fragment has not a trace of an underdrawing, whereas the above-mentioned works attributed to the Master of Delft do.11 The dendrochronology yields no clues for dating the painting, but one can assume on the basis of the stylistic similarities that it is from the same period as the Rijksmuseum triptych.
(J.P. Filedt Kok)
Literature
Schretlen 1922, p. 17; Friedländer X, 1932, p. 127, no. 66; Rotterdam 1936, p. 37, no. 74 (with incorrect measurements); ENP X, 1973, p. 76, no. 66
Collection catalogues
1960, p. 197, no. 1538 L2; 1976, p. 632, no. A 3325
Citation
(accessed 26 December 2024 16:42:01).