Balthazar, one of the three Magi, with a servant

Entry

This panel, a fragment from a larger work, shows King Balthazar with a kneeling black servant who is handing him a gilt rock-crystal horn. It belongs with another fragment in the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-2546) with Melchior, who can be identified as such from his age, his long black hair and beard, and the gilt goblet in his right hand.² Both fragments originally belonged to an ^Adoration of the Magi. With his left hand Melchior is pointing up at the star that was probably above the stable in the missing section. Balthazar, who was to the left of Melchior in the complete composition, is looking where Melchior is pointing. The iconographic type with one of the Magi pointing at the star is rarely found in Netherlandish or Lower Rhineland painting around 1500. It is mainly seen in 14th-century painting, and was derived from French religious plays originating in the 11th century and flowering in the 12th and 13th centuries. In painting it was eventually supplanted by the multi-figured Adoration type of the kind depicted in Rogier van der Weyden’s ‘Columba altarpiece’.³ It persisted longer in miniatures, an example being one painted in Cologne around 1498 in a psalter in the Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek in Cologne.⁴

The figures in the two fragments are characterised by twisted poses, rather deep-set eyes and mouths turned down at the corners. The mountainous river landscape in the background of both panels has a high horizon with undulating hills that overlap diagonally. De Werd and Lemmens have convincingly attributed the two works to the anonymous painter of the wings of a domestic altarpiece with scenes from the life of Christ (fig. a).⁵ The two kings are not only strikingly similar to their counterparts in ‘The adoration of the Magi’ on the outer wings of that altarpiece, with Melchior again pointing up at the star, but the structure and effect of the landscape is the same. In addition, the pose of the kneeling servant in the Amsterdam Balthazar is repeated in the kneeling tormentors in the ‘Mocking and Flagellation’ scenes on the inner wings of the altarpiece.⁶ The centre panel is a carved ‘Lamentation’ group that has been convincingly attributed to Master Arnt of Zwolle (active 1460-92). The style and execution of the figures on the wings match those of the centre panel, which indicates that the two artists worked closely together.

There is also a relationship to the work of the Master of the St Bartholomew Altarpiece (c. 1450-c. 1510), as demonstrated by the well-argued attribution of two works which were once considered to be by him. The first is a ‘Man of sorrows’,⁷ and the second a miniature of ‘The adoration of the Magi’ in the Book of Hours of Sophia van Bylant, the other 12 miniatures of which are still attributed to the St Bartholomew Master. Despite the persuasive definition of this small oeuvre, the artist still has no ad hoc name.

‘The adoration’ on the domestic altarpiece also has an accurate view of Kranenburg, near Nijmegen, so it is generally assumed that the triptych was made in Nijmegen for the Carthusian monk depicted on the centre panel, and that he was staying in the refuge house of the Roermond Carthusians in Nijmegen. Since the house was bought in 1483 and Master Arnt moved his workshop from Kalkar to Zwolle in 1484, the domestic altarpiece is dated c. 1483. De Werd and Lemmens place the artist in Nijmegen on the basis of these and other considerations.⁸ Defoer supports this by arguing that the miniatures in the Book of Hours could also have been executed in the same city, after which they were added to the text and bound in by the Lelie-Leeuw bindery in Nijmegen.⁹ Little is known about painting in Nijmegen in this period, so the small oeuvre of the artist, who was probably active in the city and was in direct contact with both the Master of the St Bartholomew Altarpiece and Master Arnt of Zwolle, is a welcome addition to our knowledge.
JN