Triptych with the Crucifixion (centre panel), the Mass of St Gregory (inner left wing), St Christopher (inner right wing) and the Annunciation (outer wings)

Entry

This triptych, which is still in its original frame, is one of the earliest examples of early northern Netherlandish painting. The outline of the city of Utrecht in the background of the centre panel, to which a rough date can be attached, makes it likely that the triptych was painted there, a suspicion that is reinforced by the close relationship to Utrecht miniature painting of around 1460.

The centre panel shows the ‘Crucifixion’ with the Virgin and St John flanking the cross. The skull and bone on the ground refer not only to Golgotha (The Place of the Skull), where the Crucifixion took place, but also to Adam, who was supposedly buried there. Other paintings of the subject traditionally have an imaginary Jerusalem in the background, but behind the city walls here are the church towers that once dominated the skyline of 15th-century Utrecht. On the far right is the cathedral tower, which appears to be attached to the Gothic choir by the Romanesque nave - the situation that existed prior to 1467.² To the left of the cathedral are St Paul’s Abbey, the Pieterskerk, and possibly the octagonal Chapel of the Holy Sacrament. On the left, by the Virgin’s head, is the Buurkerk, which had reached this stage in its construction around 1460.³ This means that the possible model on which the cityscape was based can be dated around 1460.

The left wing depicts the miracle which is said to have taken place during a Mass celebrated by St Gregory the Great (? 540-604) during his papacy (590-604) in the Church of Santa Croce in Rome. When a disbelieving priest doubted the transubstantiation of the host into the body of Christ during the Eucharist, Gregory asked Christ to provide a sign that would serve as proof. Christ then appeared on the altar as the Man of Sorrows with the instruments of the Passion and the people involved in his suffering.⁴ Here he is shown with the crown of thorns on his head and the wounds in his hands, feet and side. Behind him is the cross with his garment on the horizontal beam, and around it the ladder, nails, pincers, scourge, flagellation post, the hand that struck him, the soldiers’ three dice, the club, St Peter and the cockerel, Veronica with her cloth, the open tomb, and the 30 pieces of silver with the head of the traitor Judas. The other heads are those of Annas, Caiaphas and Pilate, all three of whom had a hand in condemning Christ to death. As usual there are burning candles standing on the back of the altar. The missal, to the left of the chalice and paten, is opened at a miniature of the Crucifixion, which dominates the central part of the Mass, during which the consecration takes place.

On the right wing is St Christopher, ‘the bearer of Christ’, the giant who carried the poor and the weak safely across the river. He also took the Christ Child with the globe of the world on his shoulders, and found his burden growing heavier with every step, as he was also bearing the sins of mankind.⁵ According to tradition a hermit guided him on his way with a lantern. Christopher was the patron saint of travellers, and because it was believed that viewing his likeness protected one from sudden death large images of him were often placed in church doorways.

The outer wings have a grisaille of the Annunciation. The announcement of the forthcoming birth of Christ to the Virgin symbolises the moment when Christ became man. The angel and the Virgin are both depicted beneath a canopy, and stand on an impost like stone statues.⁶

Hazelzet sought the connection between the various scenes in the triptych in the celebration of the Eucharist: ‘the beholding of the host’.⁷ According to her, the Mass of St Gregory is an allusion to the high point of the Mass, the elevation of the host so that it can be seen by the congregation. Like the sight of an image of St Christopher, this moment was supposed to protect one from sudden death. ‘The Crucifixion’ in the centre panel depicts the event that the faithful are expected to meditate upon during the consecration. ‘The Annunciation’ on the outer wings is the precondition for allowing Christ to die for the sins of the world. There are no known parallels in the visual arts for this interpretation.

In fact, though, the Mass of St Gregory is not about the sight of the host or a reference to it, but to the proof that the bread and wine really are changed into Christ’s body and blood during the consecration. It is the sign that Christ himself gave during the Last Supper as a reminder of the redemption of mankind through his coming death on the cross, which is presented as the main scene in the centre panel. By taking the Christ Child on his shoulders, St Christopher also took up the burden of the sins of mankind for which Christ had to die, and in that respect can be seen as his forerunner.

The triptych is too small to have served as an altarpiece, but it could very well have been made for private devotion or as a memorial tablet, or both. Nothing is known about its provenance prior to its acquisition by the Rijksmuseum in 1887, nor about the artist. He is often sought in Utrecht because of the city’s churches in the background of the centre panel, but it is also realised that the cityscape is insufficient evidence to place him there. Almost nothing is known about the 15th-century panel painting in Utrecht, which completely rules out comparisons on stylistic grounds. Winkler, who was the first to discuss the triptych at length in the art-historical literature in 1923, made a connection with the miniatures in the prayer book of Bishop Gysbrecht van Brederode of Utrecht, which is now in the University Library in Liège,⁸ and believed that the triptych must have been made in the same workshop.⁹ In 1930 Byvanck christened the artist the Master of Evert van Zoudenbalch.¹⁰ The triptych can best be compared to the miniatures by that master in the Book of Hours of Jan van Amerongen of 1460 in the Royal Library in Brussels,¹¹ in which ‘The Crucifixion’ (fig. a) displays close similarities to the centre panel of the triptych.¹² A small oeuvre has since been formed around this miniaturist and painter, who was active in Utrecht between 1455 and 1470. He is thought to be the artist of the mural with ‘The tree of Jesse’ in the city’s Buurkerk, while a ‘Crucifixion’ in the Museum of Rhode Island School of Design in Providence is attributed to him on stylistic grounds.¹³ The faces of the Virgin and Christ on the cross are indeed related to that of one of the kings in ‘The tree of Jesse’ in Utrecht’s Buurkerk. Boon identified the Master of Evert van Zoudenbalch as Hillebrant van Rewijck, who received various commissions for the Buurkerk between 1456 and 1469, and became an elder of the painters’ guild in 1470.¹⁴

The artist of the triptych used models that are related to those in the miniatures. The comparable styles also make it likely that the artists worked in the same circle, but it is difficult to say whether the painter of the triptych is identical with the Master of Evert van Zoudenbalch given the obvious differences between the highly draughtsman-like technique of miniatures and the flatter and broader manner of the triptych. The meticulous underdrawing with hatchings, which was probably executed with the brush (fig. b), and the structure of the paint layers are consistent with the painting technique employed elsewhere in the Netherlands in this period. The related manners of the inner and outer wings lend no substance to Châtelet’s theory that ‘The Annunciation’ is by a different hand.¹⁵
Since it was not possible to remove the frame to carry out a dendrochronological examination, the basis for dating the triptych is the Utrecht cityscape in the centre panel, which is placed around 1460. The manuscripts by the Master of Evert van Zoudenbalch were made in the same period.
LH/JPFK