Object data
oil on panel
support: height 100.7 cm × width 83.4 cm
depth 6.9 cm
Cornelis Cornelisz II Buys (attributed to)
The Lamentation of Christ
c. 1530 - c. 1540
Technical notes
The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks (29.1, 25.7 and 29.2 cm), 1.0-1.3 cm thick. They were joined with two pairs of dovetails, which were later removed. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1513. The panel could have been ready for use by 1524, but a date in or after 1538 is more likely. The white ground, which is visible along the edges and in the lacunae, extends to the edges of the support. Infrared reflectography has partially revealed an underdrawing in a dry medium, probably black chalk. The forms in the composition were prepared with restless, wavy and often angular lines. Some of them look almost like rounded strokes of lightning. There are frequent multiple contour lines, which indicate that the artist was sketching and searching for solutions. Almost all the forms are indicated, including the details in the background and the clouds, and the inner drawing in the drapery folds and the anatomies. However, there is no hatching to mark out shaded areas. The figures were reserved. The painted surface follows the underdrawing almost literally, with only a few minor alterations, as in the cap of the Mary on the far right, which extended further to the left by the right side of the face in the underdrawing. The painting is broadly brushed, with an extensive use of white highlights in the draperies.
Scientific examination and reports
- condition report: E. Smeenk-Metz, RMA, 15 January 2007
- infrared reflectography: M. Wolters / M. Leeflang [2], RKD/RMA, no. RKDG433, 15 January 2007
- condition report: H. Baija, RMA, 14 February 2007
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 27 February 2007
Condition
Poor. The paint layers are quite damaged, with stable lifting paint and many discoloured retouchings. The thick varnish is very discoloured and matte.
Provenance
…; ? collection Gabriel Jasper Gerrit de Vidal de Saint Germain (1808-87), Het Reelaer, Raalte; ? his daughter, Elisabeth de Vidal de Saint Germain; ? her husband, Adriaan Henri Lambertus de Bel, Bussum; ? from whom sold to Willem Hendrik Köhler (1876-1931), Utrecht; ? by whom bequeathed to Gabriel Jasper Gerrit de Bel (1879-1951); his widow, Johanna de Bel-Paris (1886-?), Amsterdam;1 her sale et al., Amsterdam (Mak van Waay), 2 June 1970 sqq., no. 77, unsold;2 from Johanna de Bel-Paris, Amsterdam, fl. 7,500, to the museum, with support from the Jubileumfonds 1958, 1972
Object number: SK-A-4219
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Stichting Jubileumfonds Rijksmuseum
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Cornelis Cornelisz Buys II (? Alkmaar c. 1500 - Alkmaar 1545/46), attributed to
Cornelis Cornelisz Buys’s date and place of birth are not known. He is called Cornelis Buys II in the art-historical literature on the assumption that he was born around 1500 as the son of the painter Cornelis Buys I. According to Van Mander, the latter was the brother of the Amsterdam painter Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, and according to Buchelius he died in 1524. Cornelis Buys I has been identified with the Master of Alkmaar in the past. Although the Alkmaar archives contain no biographical data about him, there are documents relating to commissions he received for lost altarpieces for Egmond Abbey and the St Jacobuskerk in Alkmaar. The vault paintings with The Last Judgement of 1516-19 in Alkmaar’s Laurenskerk were already being attributed to Cornelis Buys I at the beginning of the 20th century. Stylistically they are related to the workshop of his brother Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen.
The ‘Cornelis Buys the painter’ first mentioned between 1516 and 1519 in the Alkmaar archives was probably the son, not the father. In 1521 Cornelis Buys II paid off a debt owed by his wife Katrijn Ghijsbertsdr, whom he must have married around that time, and her sister Bartte. Cornelis and Katrijn had two sons, Cornelis and Gijsbert, both of whom trained as artists with their father. Another apprentice, who entered the workshop in 1521, was Henrick Adriaensz. Today there are no known works by any of these pupils. Cornelis Buys II worked as a decorative painter on the frame of the St Lawrence Altarpiece of 1538-42 by Maarten van Heemskerck. He died in 1545/46, shortly after his wife, and was buried with her in the St Laurenskerk.
Cornelis Buys II probably trained in the workshop of his father, Cornelis Buys I (?-1519/24), and possibly that of his uncle Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (c. 1472/77-1528/33) in Amsterdam as well. He was of the same generation as Jan van Scorel, who according to Buchelius was a pupil of Cornelis Buys I, and according to Van Mander of Jacob Cornelisz. The family relationship with the latter is apparent from the only documented painting by Cornelis Buys II, Rebecca at the Well, which is signed with the initials ‘C B’ and Cornelisz’s family monogram, ‘VW’ (SK-A-4219, fig. b).
This signed painting served as the basis for Hoogewerff, and more recently De Vries, to assemble a small attributed oeuvre for Cornelis Buys II, including a Last Supper and Jacob leaving Laban.3 These paintings display the influence of Jan van Scorel, most notably in the landscape, and have a distinctive, fairly smooth and hard manner with a wealth of ornamental detail.
References
Buchelius 1583-1639 (1928), p. 30; Van Mander 1604, fol. 207v; Kalcken/Six 1903; Bruinvis 1904, pp. 212-14; Bruinvis in Thieme/Becker V, 1911, pp. 307-08; Six 1925, pp. 1-12; Hoogewerff II, 1937, pp. 357-58, IV, 1941, pp. 20-22, 27-29, 205-14; Wescher 1946; Bruyn 1966, pp. 149, 158-59; De Vries in Amsterdam 1986a, pp. 242-45; De Vries 1987; Miedema II, 1995, pp. 287-88, 290-91; Kloek 1996, pp. 52-71; Miedema III, 1996, pp. 274-75; Grubach in Saur XV, 1996, p. 399
(Jan Piet Filedt Kok)
Entry
The Lamentation of Christ is not described in the Bible, but in later apocryphal and devotional writings. One of the most popular subjects in late-medieval painting, it is the moment following the removal of the dead Christ from the cross by Joseph of Arimathaea and Nicodemus.4 Both men stand in the left foreground: one supporting Christ’s body, the other holding a jar of myrrh and aloes with which Christ will be embalmed. In the centre is the mourning Virgin being supported by St John, and to the right of them Mary Cleophas and Mary Salome, and in front of them Mary Magdalen. Her jar of ointment is prominent in the foreground, along with the crown of thorns, the nails from the cross and the bottle of vinegar. Christ can be seen hanging on the cross in the background surrounded by the mourning figures of the Virgin, St John and the three Marys, together with the centurion and soldiers.
There are two known variants of this scene. A small triptych in the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-2392) has a very similar figure group on the centre panel, but the Crucifixion in the background was omitted. In the other version in Utrecht, which is still in its original frame and is a bit smaller than the present painting, there are differences in the faces and dress, which looks a little more modern (fig. a). For that reason it is dated later than the two versions in Amsterdam. It turns out that an underdrawn grid was used in the Utrecht painting for transferring the composition.5
It is impossible to say whether the present painting was the first version of the composition, partly because of its poor condition. There are no traces of a mechanically transferred underdrawing like the one in the Utrecht painting. The cursory and searching nature of the underdrawing could indicate that it was an original invention. At the same time, though, one could imagine a painter drawing freehand from a model.
Stylistically the figures recall the work of Jan van Scorel. A related palette and comparable type of figure are found in two scenes of The Crucifixion made in Scorel’s workshop around 1535-40 which are now in the Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht.6 This provides a pointer for the date of the Amsterdam picture, and indicates that the artist was more a contemporary of Jan van Scorel than of Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen. It is unlikely, then, that he was Cornelis Buys I, his son and/or his workshop being a better candidate. These findings are confirmed by the dendrochronology, which points to a date in or after 1538.
The Amsterdam painting and the two variants lack the precise and smooth ‘metallic’ finish and the ornamental details that characterise Cornelis Buys II’s most typical works, those being the only signed painting, Rebecca at the Well (fig. b), and the various versions of The Last Supper and Jacob leaving Laban.7 The types of figure and the modelling of the draperies are, however, related to those paintings. The way in which the costumes are built up with a great deal of white, and the hair drawn with yellow highlights, also display similarities to the paintings of Cornelis Buys II, which is why the attribution to him has been retained here.
(Jan Piet Filedt Kok,)
Literature
Kloek 1996, pp. 65-66 (as workshop of Cornelis Buys I)
Collection catalogues
1976, pp. 158-59, no. A 4219
Citation
J.P. Filedt Kok, 2010, 'attributed to Cornelis Cornelisz. (II) Buys, The Lamentation of Christ, c. 1530 - c. 1540', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8104
(accessed 13 November 2024 04:48:52).Figures
fig. b Cornelis Cornelisz Buys II, 'Rebecca at the well', c. 1530-40. Signed with the initials ‘C B’ and the monogram ‘VW’. Oil on panel, 106.3 x 72 cm. Switzerland, private collection EKTA
fig. a Cornelis Cornelisz Buys II, The Lamentation of Christ, c. 1540-45. Oil on panel, 86 x 65 cm. Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent
fig. b Cornelis Cornelisz Buys II, Rebecca at the Well, c. 1530-40. Signed with the initials ‘C B’ and the monogram ‘VW’. Oil on panel, 106.3 x 72 cm. Switzerland, private collection