The Adoration of the Magi with St John the Baptist

Entry

Together with the two accompanying panels (BK-NM-6074 and BK-NM-6075), this polychromed relief was found on the first attic of the Moreau-organ in the Sint-Janskerk (Grote Kerk) in Gouda. According to tradition they were once part of an altar in that church.² If this is accurate, the devastating fire of 1552 in which the most of the church’s interior was destroyed, is a probable terminus post quem for their creation.³ The panels may derive from the new high altar, erected in 1561-63, that was dedicated to St John the Baptist. Alternatively, recent authors have argued the panels could derive from the hexagonal barrel of the church’s sixteenth-century pulpit, which was decorated with five carved and polychromed medallions, one of them representing Pentecost.⁴ It is unclear if this is the preeck-stoel (pulpit), which, according to an eye witness testimony, was saved from the fire in 1552,⁵ or a new one that was erected after the disaster.

Depicted in the medallion of the present relief is the Adoration of the Magi with St John the Baptist. St John is the prominently portrayed figure in the background. He leans on a balustrade consisting of a branch. That the figure is indeed John the Baptist and not, as was previously thought, Joseph,⁶ is apparent from the panel with the Baptism of Christ (BK-NM-6074), since in this scene, John wears the same green robe with frayed puffed sleeves and the same red cloak. Mary sits before him on the ground, suckling the Christ Child. The head of the seated figure behind Christ is missing, this appears to be an angel. Next to them are two of the three wise men, or Magi; the left one is kneeling and wears a crown. The standing figure at right, with puffy cheeks, can be identified as Caspar, the Moorish king. Oddly enough, they are not bearing gifts. For this reason, and because of the unusual and also anachronistic presence of John the Baptist, the scene has sometimes been viewed as the preaching of John the Baptist.⁷ This interpretation is less likely, however, considering that all attention is focused on the Child, as is customary in scenes of the Adoration. The presence of John the Baptist in this scene can perhaps be explained by the idea that the Sint-Janskerk was dedicated to this ‘forerunner of Christ’, who was also the patron saint of Gouda. However, it has never been conclusively proven that the panels originally belonged to this church.⁸

The three reliefs have been linked stylistically to the work of Jan Swart van Groningen (c. 1500-in or after 1553), who probably spent some time in Gouda. Although his known work consists only of prints and paintings, Swart has even been named, with some reservation, as the maker of the panels.⁹ The style of the panels may well be reminiscent of Swart, but they more closely resemble the work of Jan van Scorel (1495-1562) and Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574).¹⁰ For example, the figure type of the woman appearing on these panels is closely related to Scorel’s Mary Magdalene in the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-372). Compare, for instance, the hair style with plaits at the side of the head and the stray locks of hair at the temples, in combination with a head-cloth. Furthermore, the Christ Child in the panel with the Adoration (BK-NM-6076) is comparable to the Child in Heemskerck’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt in the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Child in Scorel’s Madonna and Child with Wild Roses in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht.¹¹ Finally, the pose of the figures, who display a bent left or right leg, also occurs in many of Scorel’s and Heemskerck’s paintings. The panels must have been made by an anonymous woodcarver who was familiar with the work of these early Renaissance painters. He succeeded in allowing the figures to follow, where necessary, the curve of the medallions in a natural way. The muscular putti in the corners have lower bodies that split into acanthus leaves, which then turn into animal heads. They are reminiscent of the marvellous grotesque ornamentation of the carved oak choir screen in the Grote Kerk in Enkhuizen dating from 1542.

The iconographic connection between the scenes depicted on the three remaining panels is difficult to explain. The two scenes from the life of Christ, the Adoration and the Baptism, are suggestive of a longer cycle. This might have been combined with a perhaps equally large series of (Franciscan) saints, of which the third panel seems to be an example (BK-NM-6075).¹² If indeed the panels were once part of an altarpiece, as tradition would have it, the altarpiece in question was perhaps comparable to Jan Mone’s 1533 Sacraments Retable of alabaster, likewise with a series of relief medallions each incorporated in a square panel, in the Sint-Martinuskerk in Halle (fig. a).¹³ From an iconographical point of view it seems to be less likely they were part of the church’s pulpit, which had only five panels – one of which depicted yet another scene related to the life of Christ (Pentecost). This combination of scenes doesn’t seem to agree with the inclusion of the rather unusual depiction of St John of Capistrano. However the pulpit-theory should not be dismissed entirely because, in terms of their shape and size, the panels are very comparable to those of other sixteenth-century hexagonal pulpit barrels.¹⁴

Bieke van der Mark, 2024