Polyptych with the Seven Works of Charity

Entry

For four centuries this colourful polyptych, which is dated 1504, called on the faithful, in both Catholic and Protestant times, to be charitable to people in need. The seven panels are still in their original framing, the inscriptions on which make it clear that those who help their fellow men with the works of charity will be richly rewarded in the next world.

In Matthew 25:31-46, Christ explains that people will have to answer for their deeds at the Last Judgement. He then lists six works of charity, saying ‘Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’. Damnation awaits those who fail to do so, while eternal life is the reward for those who have come to the aid of others. This explains why Christ is depicted among the needy in the polyptych, usually inconspicuously in the background. The seventh work of charity, burying the dead, is derived from the book of Tobit 1:17, and was only officially added to the six mentioned in Matthew at the beginning of the 13th century.⁵ It is depicted on Burying the Dead (SK-A-2815-4) with Christ enthroned on a globe in the sky as the judge of the Last Judgement, accompanied by the Virgin and John the Baptist.

The scenes of the seven good works in this polyptych present a vivacious picture of life in a late-medieval city. The needy, beggars, invalids and lepers are depicted almost as caricatures, while the well-dressed benefactors are fairly stereotype. The colourful groups of figures are a little stiff and emphatic. The brightly coloured buildings look more like stage scenery due to the lack of a convincing perspective. Despite these bits of clumsiness, though, the scenes leave nothing to be desired as regards clarity, with the lessons being driven home by the inscriptions.⁶

A combination of The Seven Works of Charity with a Last Judgement in a single work of art was often found in almshouses in the 15th and 16th centuries.⁷ One such painting, which was attributed to Geertgen tot Sint Jans, hung in the Holy Spirit Almshouse in Haarlem until the 18th century.⁸

It is assumed that the Rijksmuseum polyptych was commissioned by the regents of the Holy Spirit Almshouse in Alkmaar. They could be the three men posing prominently with Christ in the right foreground of Visiting the Sick (SK-A-2815-6), whose faces have the look of portraits. It is not known whether the work was originally installed in the Holy Spirit Almshouse, which closed in 1575, or whether it was immediately hung in the St Laurenskerk, where it is certainly recorded in 1582. A chronicle written by the churchwarden Jacob Dircsz Wijncoper states that on 24 June of that year some miscreants forced their way into the church and smeared the scenes on the pulpit and The Seven Works of Charity with black paint.⁹ It was removed soon afterwards, but in the course of 20th-century restorations of the polyptych it was discovered that during one of the earlier iconoclasms, in 1566 or 1572, it had been seriously damaged with a knife, with parts of the paint layer being hacked off, mainly in the faces. During the most recent restoration in the 1970s it was decided to leave the damaged areas visible, mainly in Burying the Dead (SK-A-2815-4).¹⁰ Not only can traces of the iconoclasms be seen, but also the areas of water damage around the edges of the panels, where the paint has been lost right down to the oak support. That, combined with the stripping of the oak frames in the 20th century, has destroyed much of the spatial illusion. The framing probably had a uniform colour or was marbled, and possibly sparsely gilded. When the layers of paint and ground were removed from the framing, care was taken to preserve the inscriptions done in black paint, which look reliable.

As noted, the polyptych hung in Alkmaar’s Laurenskerk from the late 16th to the early 20th century, behind the font and below the main organ. After the Reformation it must have continued to serve in the now Protestant church as an encouragement to visitors to leave alms for the poor. There was probably a collection box close by.¹¹ It was also one of the sights in the church. In 1913, the churchwardens lent it out for the first exhibition of early northern Netherlandish painting and sculpture in Utrecht. They sold it to the Rijksmuseum in 1918 for the then considerable sum of 50,000 guilders in order to raise funds for the restoration of the church.¹² After the museum had acquired it with the aid of the Vereniging Rembrandt, there were lengthy discussions as to how it should be restored. This was finally done in 1930, when the seven panels were cradled and the framework was stripped.¹³

The work was being associated with Geertgen tot Sint Jans as early as the 18th century, until it was discovered in the 19th century that the date 1504 on Refreshing the Thirsty and the frame of Burying the Dead (SK-A-2815-2 and SK-A-2815-4) ruled that out, given the date of Geertgen’s death in c. 1485/95.¹⁴ The close ties with the Haarlem school of painting have always been noted. The relationship to Geertgen’s work lies not so much in the formal vocabulary as in the light palette and the lighting effects. In 1914, Valentiner gave the maker the ad hoc name of the Master of Alkmaar, and attributed several other paintings to the same hand. None of the many attempts to identify the artist is satisfactory,¹⁵ nor has any explanation been found for the mark ‘AA’ on Feeding the Hungry (SK-A-2815-1).

One possible clue for an attribution is provided by the very extensive underdrawing, probably executed with the brush, which infrared reflectography revealed on all the panels. Most of the forms were prepared with contour lines, with the drapery folds, shadows and architecture being indicated with a wide range of hatchings. The latter are not just parallel, but also criss-cross in the deeper shadows, when they are often very densely packed (SK-A-2815-5). Regularly, too, there are parallel lines across the fingers, sometimes over the first phalanxes and sometimes over the last ones. The very varied underdrawing has the same characteristics in all seven panels, and is undoubtedly by the same hand. No underdrawing of this kind has been found in any of the other paintings attributed to the Master of Alkmaar. The paint layer is quite thin and was applied flowingly. The details in the faces were applied in a draughtsman-like way with a combination of red and brown paint and white highlights. The detailed underdrawing, the thin technique and the light palette are features of a tradition followed by various northern Netherlandish painters in this period, so it is likely that the artist worked in Alkmaar, Haarlem or Amsterdam.

(J.P. Filedt Kok)