Object data
oil on panel
support: height 26.5 cm × width 21.4 cm
thickness 1.0 cm
depth 3.8 cm
Lucas van Leyden (copy after)
Inner Left Wing of a Diptych with Christ as the Man of Sorrows
Leiden, c. 1557 - c. 1600
Inscriptions
-
Falsely signed and dated in gold, top right: AD 1511
Technical notes
The support is a single vertically grained oak plank, 0.3-0.6 cm thick. There is a panel maker’s mark of an impressed star within a circle (fig. b), similar to that on the pendant (SK-A-1484). Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1548. The panel could have been ready for use by 1559, but a date in or after 1573 is more likely. The plank came from the same tree as that used for the pendant. The white ground and the paint layers were applied smoothly up to the edges of the support. The ground layer is a traditional chalk-glue ground with linseed oil. Infrared reflectography revealed an underdrawing for the figures in a dry medium, schematically indicating the contours and drapery folds. It could therefore be assumed that the main lines were traced with the help of a specially prepared transfer paper. The figures were reserved. The painted composition closely follows the contours of the underdrawing. Conventional pigments, such as vermilion, lead-tin yellow, lead white and azurite with an admixture of smalt were identified. The paint layers were carefully built up in thin layers; the face and hands were painted wet in wet. Mordant gilding was used for the halo.
Scientific examination and reports
- X-radiography: A. Wallert, RMA, no. 1688, 21 May 1997
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 16 January 1998
- infrared reflectography: M. Wolters / A. Wallert [2], RKD/RMA, no. RKDG43, 1 October 1998
- X-radiography: A. Wallert, RMA, no. 1709, 15 July 1999
- condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 22 March 2006
Literature scientific examination and reports
Wallert/Bijl 2001
Condition
Fair. The panel was broken in the past and there is some discoloured retouching on the craquelure. The varnish is slightly discoloured.
Provenance
…; sale, F. Kaijser (†) (Frankfurt and Amsterdam) et al. [section F. Kaijser], Amsterdam (C.F. Roos), 4 December 1888 sqq., no. 25, as Albrecht Dürer, fl. 300, to Mr Santen,1 or fl. 275, to Mr Santen, for the widow of F. Kaijser;2 ...; purchased by the museum, fl. 316.50, 1889
Object number: SK-A-1483
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Lucas van Leyden (Leiden c. 1494 - Leiden 1533), copy after
According to Van Mander, Lucas van Leyden was born in Leiden in May or June 1494 as the son of the painter Huygh Jacobsz. He is described as a child prodigy who took to art at an early age. He was already making engravings when he was 9 years old, and sold his first painting at the age of 12. Several specialists have cast doubt on the date 1494, preferring to place his birth around 1489. Lucas was one of the five children from the first marriage of Huygh Jacobsz (c. 1460-c. 1535) to Marie Hendriksdr, who died in 1494. Although Huygh Jacobsz is well documented in the archives, there is not a single work that can be attributed to him with any certainty. Van Mander reports that Lucas was first trained by his father, and then by Cornelis Engelbrechtsz. Together with the latter and his sons, Lucas is listed as a member of the crossbowmen’s guild between 1514 and 1519. He was still living with his father in Breestraat in 1515. In early June 1521 he met Albrecht Dürer in Antwerp, with whom he exchanged prints and who drew his portrait in silverpoint. He must have returned to Leiden soon afterwards, for at the end of June he stood surety for his brother Dirk, who was also a painter. His presence in the city is documented in 1525 and 1529 for the same reason. Shortly after 1526 he must have married Lysbeth van Bosschuysen, who belonged to one of the most powerful and richest families in Leiden. Van Mander’s anecdotal story about Lucas’s journey to Zeeland, Flanders and Brabant around 1527 seems implausible, given his high output at that time, as does reports of an illness caused partly due to his suspicion that he had been poisoned. He was buried in Leiden’s Pieterskerk in 1533.
The core of Lucas van Leyden’s oeuvre consists of almost 170 engravings and etchings, almost all of which have the monogram ‘L’, most of them bearing a date between 1508 and 1530. The artistic rivalry with the graphic work of Albrecht Dürer, which had already been remarked upon by Vasari, was central to his entire development. The reputation that Lucas enjoyed during his lifetime was due mainly to the international circulation of his prints. In addition to his work as an engraver he designed woodcuts, book illustrations and stained-glass roundels.
Some of the paintings described by Van Mander have survived, including his earliest dated panels of a Diptych with the Virgin and Child with a Donor and Mary Magdalen of 1521.3 The Triptych with the Last Judgement of c. 1526-27,4 and the Triptych with the Dance around the Golden Calf of c. 1530 (SK-A-3841) are also described by Van Mander, as is his last dated painting, The Healing of the Blind Man of Jericho of 1531.5 In addition to a tempera painting of Moses Striking Water from the Rock,6 which is signed and dated 1527, there are a dozen other pictures that can be attributed to the master. His early work, dating from around 1508, consists of small pieces with half-length figures in Old Testament scenes, as well as people playing chess and cards. Among his mature works are the altarpieces, as well as a few portraits and small devotional works.
Updated by J.P. Filedt Kok, 2017
References
Vasari 1568, III, p. 860; Van Mander 1604, fols. 211-15; Dülberg 1899b; Wescher in Thieme/Becker XXIII, 1929, pp. 168-70; Friedländer X, 1932, pp. 78-113, 134-38; Hoogewerff III, 1939, pp. 207-320; Rupprich I, 1956, pp. 174-75; ENP X, 1973, pp. 46-63, 81-84; Vos 1978b; Miedema III, 1996, pp. 1-31; Filedt Kok in Turner 1996, XIX, pp. 756-62; Kik in exh. cat. Leiden 2011, pp. 198-99
Entry
The compositions of this small panel with Christ as the Man of Sorrows and its pendant The Virgin as Mater Dolorosa (SK-A-1484 or fig. d) exist in many versions. The combination of both scenes in a devotional diptych originated in Byzantine and Italian 13th and 14th-century painting. Diptychs of this kind met a need on the part of the faithful to meditate on Christ’s physical suffering during the Passion, and on the Virgin’s sorrow.7 The subject became popular in the Low Countries in the second half of the 16th century, and countless versions were produced until late in the century, chiefly in the workshops of the Louvain painters Dieric and Aelbert Bouts.8
The underdrawing with schematic-looking contour lines and hatchings suggests that a cartoon was used for this diptych (see fig. a, infrared reflectogram assembly of (SK-A-1484). The thin layers of paint follow it precisely. Dendrochronological examination has shown that the panels were painted after 1559, and more probably after 1573. That late date can be confirmed by the use of smalt in the Virgin’s dress, which is a pigment that only came into common use in the second half of the century.9 There has long been a suspicion that the Rijksmuseum diptych, as well as the many other versions, were painted in the southern Netherlands.10 They were probably part of the high output of devotional diptychs in Antwerp in the second half of the 16th century. One possible clue to the place of origin is the so far unidentified panel maker’s mark on the back of both paintings, which Wadum sees as confirmation of an Antwerp origin (fig. b).11
In the Amsterdam diptych, Christ with the crown of thorns and the Virgin are shown half length, both with crossed hands and standing in front of a low, marbled wall. The monogram of Albrecht Dürer and the date 1511 were later added in the top right corner of the panel with Christ. Neither scene, though, is based on a work by Dürer but in all probability on a lost diptych by Lucas van Leyden.12 That prototype is known from an etching with the monogram L and the date 1522 which must have been made around 1600 (fig. c). The etching is an example of the great revival of interest in the work of Lucas van Leyden at that time, with several other variants being preserved in print.13 One work that is probably of an earlier date is a woodcut of The Virgin with the Rosary that is attributed to Lucas, in which the Virgin is almost identical to the one in this painting.14
There are many versions of the diptych, most of them probably emanating from the same workshop. At present there are close on 30 known versions of both panels, almost 20 of them complete diptychs.15 On the evidence of the photo documentation in the RKD, seven pairs can be added to the eleven listed by Smith.16 In addition, three more versions of The Virgin as Mater Dolorosa unaccompanied by a pendant have been found in the files of the RKD to add to the five mentioned by Smith,17 and the three versions listed by Smith of Christ as the Man of Sorrows unaccompanied by a pendant can be joined by three more.18 As well as all these versions there are mentions of similar diptychs by or after Lucas van Leyden in 17th-century inventories in Antwerp and The Hague.19 One such is found in the inventory of Claes Claesz van Leeuwen, who died in Leiden on 23 January 1645: ‘Two scenes, being Christ and Our Lady, copies after Lucas van Leyden’.20
(Menno Balm/Jan Piet Filedt Kok)
Literature
Bott 1965; Smith 1992, pp. 116-19, 310; Wallert/Bijl 2001
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 3, nos. 19, 20 (as German school, copies, first half 16th century); 1976, p. 685, nos. A 1483, A 1484 (as Leiden school, c. 1515)
Citation
M. Balm, 2010, 'copy after Lucas van Leyden, Inner Left Wing of a Diptych with Christ as the Man of Sorrows, c. 1557 - c. 1600', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.12114
(accessed 20 September 2024 11:33:55).Figures
fig. b The panel maker’s mark on the back
fig. d Lucas van Leyden, Inner right wing of a diptych with the Virgin as Mater Dolorosa, c. 1557-1600
fig. a Infrared reflectogram assembly of its pendant, SK-A-1484 (© Stichting RKD)
fig. b The panel maker’s mark on the back
fig. c Attributed to Simon Frisius, Christ as the Man of Sorrows and the Virgin as Mater Dolorosa in a Landscape, 1522. Etching, 130 x 184 mm. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum