Object data
oil on panel
frame: height 113.5 cm × width 82 cm
thickness 4 cm
support: height 102 cm × width 71.2 cm
sight size: height 100.5 cm × width 69.3 cm
anonymous
Left wing of an altarpiece with the meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek (inner wing) and Synagoga (outer wing)
Antwerp, Low Countries, c. 1510 - c. 1520
Inscriptions
- inscription, On the tablet in the hand of the figure of Synagoga: (Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, [...] and thy neighbour as thyself; Luke 10:27) DILIGE DOMINU DEUM TUUM EX TOTO CORDE TUO // ET PROXIMUM TUUM SICUT TE IPSUM
Technical notes
The support consists of four vertically grained oak planks (10, 13.8, 22.8 and 23.9 cm), approx. 0.3-0.7 cm thick. The panel is fixed in its current 19th-century frame in such a manner as to render dendrochronology impossible. Both sides of the support are painted. The thick off-white ground is visible through small cracks in the paint layer and along the edges, and was applied when the panel was in the original frame, as there is a barbe and unpainted edges of 0.6-0.7 cm on all sides (painted surface: approx. 100.7 x 69.6 cm) on both the front and reverse of the panel. Infrared reflectography revealed a sketchy underdrawing in a dry medium in the faces, bodies and drapery folds on both sides of the panel. Parallel hatching was used to indicate shadows. In the light areas the underdrawing can be seen with the naked eye. Infrared reflectography also revealed colour notations in the yellow sleeve of the man in the centre (‘gel’) and in the left sleeve of Melchizedek (‘gr’). The paint layers were built up systematically, with medium tones covered by darker glazes in shadow areas and by lighter tones in lighter areas. The thickness of the layers depends on the colour. In the red and yellow areas the paint was applied rather thickly; the whites, browns and dark-greys are of medium thickness, while the grey paint in the architecture was applied thinly. The paint was smoothly applied, except in the details, where lead-tin yellow was used for impasto effects. The brocade pattern on Melchizedek’s robe follows the folds in the fabric. There are a number of ‘pentimenti’. For example, the fingers of the man with the red hat were shortened. In the grisaille on the reverse the paint layers were built up in a similar fashion, only less elaborately.
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared reflectography: J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, RKD, nos. AB 1493:25-1496:19, 16 August 1993
- paint samples: J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, nos. A372/1-372/4, 23 September 1993
- condition report: Heemstra (Mauritshuis) , G. van, Mauritshuis, 18 November 1996
- condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 7 November 2005
- infrared reflectography: M. Wolters / V. Hoogland [2], RKD/RMA, no. RKDG356, 7 November 2005
Condition
Fair. There are deep scratches, which extend into the white ground, in the faces on both the front and reverse of the panel. The painting is abraded, with losses throughout. On the front of the panel there is raised paint in the reds. The losses at the back have not been filled in. The varnish is discoloured.
Conservation
- W.A. Hopman, 1887: paint layers on the reverse consolidated
- Heemstra (Mauritshuis) , G., November 1996 - February 1997: complete restoration
- Pottasch (Mauritshuis) , C., 1992: paint layer consolidated
Provenance
…; ? property of the Maria Magdalenakerk (Church of St Mary Magdalen), Goes; transferred with SK-A-867 to the Heilige Geest/Holy Spirit Hospital (the former Convent of St Agnes), Goes, 1578-1875;1 ...; sale, J.P.C. Baron van Reede van ter Aa en Aasten et al., Amsterdam (C.F. Roos and C.F. Roos Jr), 16 December 1875, nos. 36A and 36B, as Lucas van Leyden (‘A. Un chevalier suivi de ses guerriers, agenouillé devant un évêque qui lui présente une relique. Sur le revers une statue représentant la Foi. B. Le miracle ‘‘de la manne’’ dans le désert. Sur le revers, une jeune femme tenant le St. Sacrement. Hauteur 102, largeur 73 cent. Bois.’), fl. 360, to Boas Berg, for the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst (inv. nos. NM 2981, 2982);2 transferred with SK-A-867 to the museum, 1885; on loan with SK-A-867 to the Mauritshuis, The Hague, 1960-2004; on loan with SK-A-867 to the Zeeuws Museum, Middelburg, since 2004
Object number: SK-A-866
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Anonymous, Antwerp
Entry
These two double-sided panels (see also SK-A-867) were once the wings of a triptych. The left wing with The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek shows the patriarch Abraham with his army on the left. He has just returned in triumph from a battle with the kings of the east, who had attacked Sodom and Gomorrah and kidnapped his nephew Lot. Outside the gates of Salem, Abraham is kneeling before the king and high priest Melchizedek, who is offering him bread and wine and is blessing him (Genesis 14:18-24). The right wing (SK-A-867) depicts The Gathering of Manna. When the Israelites were about to die of hunger on their journey through the desert to the promised land, the Lord sent them food. On the left Moses looks on as his people gather up the food, which they called manna, picking it up from the ground and catching it as it falls from the sky (Exodus 16:11-36; Numbers 11:7-9).
The backs of the panels are decorated with grisailles, that on the left wing (fig. b) being the figure of Synagoga, who stands for the Old Covenant. She is shown as a blindfolded woman holding the tables of the law in her right hand and a broken staff in her left. The figure on the back of the right wing (fig. c) is Ecclesia, who symbolises the New Covenant. She is holding a chalice and a host, and is wearing the habit of the Poor Clares in reference to St Clare, who repulsed an attack by the Saracens by holding up a host.3
Since the Old Testament scenes on in the inner wings are prefigurations of the Eucharist, the one on the lost centre panel was very probably a Last Supper. In early Netherlandish painting there are several triptychs in which the wings foreshadow a Last Supper on the centre panel. A well-known example is the Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament which Dieric Bouts painted between 1464 and 1468 in the St Pieterskerk in Louvain.4 Iconographically, the Rijksmuseum wings are probably closer to an Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament of 1515 in which there are sculptures of both Synagoga and Ecclesia above Christ’s head in The Last Supper on the centre panel, while the wings also depict The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek and The Rain of Manna.5
The probable provenance of the panels from the Maria Magdalenakerk in Goes has given rise to the suggestion that they were painted by a Zeeland master.6 However, they display parallels with several early 16th-century Antwerp works, such as the wings of an Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament by the Master of the Von Groote Adoration (fig. a), which has the same biblical scenes. In particular, the figures of Abraham and Melchizedek on the left wing, and of the kneeling woman catching manna in a dish on the right wing, appear to be derived from the same models. The painted wings with the same scenes on two Antwerp retables with wood carvings of c. 1515 also seem to be based on those models.7 It is more likely, then that the triptych was made by an Antwerp master, either on commission or for the open market, and was then taken to Goes.8 In view of the above connections with altar wings executed around 1515, the most likely date for these two is c. 1510-20.
(V. Hoogland)
Literature
Winkler 1924, p. 221; Burger 1925, p. 147; Hoogewerff III, 1939, pp. 43-44; Tóth-Ubbens in coll. cat. The Hague 1968, pp. 42-43, no. 944; Caron/Kappelhof in Utrecht 1988, pp. 85, 96, no. 6; Van Suchtelen in The Hague 1997, pp. 64-69, no. 6; Laemers 1997, pp. 364, 367-69
Collection catalogues
1887, p. 67, nos. 536, 536a (as manner of Lucas van Leyden); 1903, p. 7, nos. 53, 54; 1934, p. 7, nos. 53, 54; 1960, p. 6, nos. 53, 54; 1976, p. 647, nos. A 866, A 867
Citation
V. Hoogland, 2010, 'anonymous, Left wing of an altarpiece with the meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek (inner wing) and Synagoga (outer wing), Antwerp, c. 1510 - c. 1520', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.7035
(accessed 10 November 2024 16:20:56).