Object data
oil on panel
support: height 55.5 cm × width 53.5 cm
painted surface: height 54.5 cm × width 52.2 cm
depth 6 cm
Master of the Saint John Panels
The Virgin and Child with St Anne, Donors and Sts Francis and Lidwina
c. 1490 - c. 1500
Technical notes
The original support consists of three vertically grained oak planks (14, 19 and 20 cm), transferred to an MDF-panel. The reverse of this new support is covered with linen saturated with wax. The white ground must have been applied in the original frame. There are unpainted edges approx. 0.5 cm wide and the remains of a barbe on all sides (painted surface: 54.5 x 52.2 cm). Some underdrawn lines are visible with the naked eye, especially in the women’s white headdresses. Infrared reflectography reveals that the composition was prepared in detail with an underdrawing in a dry medium. However, some parts of the underdrawing, such as the draperies and throne, are more elaborated than other areas (fig. b). The figures were underdrawn rather schematically with contour lines for the main forms and some indications for eyes, nose and mouth. In a few figures the position of the eyes, nose and mouth has been shifted slightly. The landscape was only indicated with a few loosely sketched lines (fig. c). The figures were reserved. In general the paint layers were applied thinly and smoothly, except for the dark blue areas (possibly azurite), in which the brushstrokes are visible. Mordant gilding (on a white bolus) was used for the haloes.
Scientific examination and reports
- condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 22 March 2006
- infrared reflectography: M. Wolters / M. Leeflang [2], RKD/RMA, no. RKDG385, 18 April 2006
Condition
Fair. While the red glazes have remained in rather good condition, the Virgin’s blue robe is discoloured, now appearing green, and the canopy curtains were possibly more purplish. There are many small discoloured retouchings and some slightly raised paint along the grain of the panel.
Provenance
…; sale, Mrs. Sven Bostrom et al. [section ‘The Property of a Gentleman’], London (Christie’s), 19 March 1965, no. 66, as Master of the Virgo inter Virgines, 2,800 gns, to the dealer P. de Boer, Amsterdam;1 from whom, fl. 50,000, to the museum, 1966
Object number: SK-A-4125
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Master of the Saint John Panels (active c. 1500-20)
The ad hoc name Master of the Saint John Panels was introduced by Hannema in 1937 to denote the unknown painter of three panels with scenes from the life of John the Baptist in Philadelphia and Rotterdam.2 In 1927 Friedländer drew attention to the stylistic affinity between the woodcuts in the book Chevalier délibéré published around 1488 in Gouda and the Philadelphia panel. It is assumed on that evidence that the painter of the panels must have been active in Gouda. In 1955 Van Regteren Altena identified him with the Leiden painter Huygh Jacobsz (c. 1460-c. 1535), Lucas van Leyden’s father. He suggested that the three panels belonged to a John the Baptist altarpiece that was said to have adorned the high altar of the St Janskerk in Gouda around 1500. Châtelet adopted this hypothesis with some hesitation in 1980, and it was expanded by Boon in 1983 using the archival data on Huygh Jacobsz that Bangs had published in 1979, which show that he was in Gouda in 1488, where he is also documented in 1490-91 in connection with a commission for a stained-glass window.
Unfortunately, nothing is known about Huygh Jacobsz’s painted oeuvre. Van Regteren Altena and later authors pointed to the similarities in the facial features and landscape to the early work of Lucas van Leyden, the assumption being that the father had influenced the son. Dendrochronology recently revealed that the Rotterdam panels could not have been painted until 1515-20 at the earliest, which makes the style of painting decidedly old-fashioned. Associating the artist with the designer of the woodcuts in the Chevalier délibéré is also problematic. In addition, the underdrawing and painting technique of the St John panels bear no resemblance to those in the early works by Lucas van Leyden, which makes it difficult to see the artist as his teacher.
As well as the St John panels, Van Regteren Altena attributed several drawings and other paintings to the master, while in 1968 Boon added the picture now in the Rijksmuseum to the oeuvre.
References
Friedländer V, 1927, pp. 61-62; Hannema 1937; Van Regteren Altena 1955, pp. 101-17; Amsterdam 1958, pp. 72-74; Boon 1968; ENP V, 1969, pp. 31-32, 97; Bangs 1979, pp. 92-94; Châtelet 1981, pp. 157-60, 237-39; Boon 1983; Helmus and Giltay in coll. cat. Rotterdam 1994, pp. 128-35, no. 27; Filedt Kok in Turner 1996, XX, p. 763; Giltay in Rotterdam 2008a, pp. 301-02
(J.P. Filedt Kok)
Entry
The subject of The Virgin and Child with St Anne was one of the most popular devotional scenes of the late middle ages. In this painting St Anne is seated on a high throne beneath a canopy in a landscape, with her daughter Mary and grandson Jesus at her feet.3 Hanging behind them is a brocade cloth. The curtains of the canopy are held aloft by angels. Members of an unidentified family are kneeling on either side of the throne in this epitaph. On the left is the father, who is being presented by St Francis displaying the wound in his side,4 and his five sons, several of whom are monks or friars. On the right is the mother with St Lidwina5 and three daughters. Kneeling at the foot of the throne are five children, with a slightly older little boy to the left of them. Van Bueren included the panel in a group of epitaphs that stress a family’s association with death, believing that the six children depicted in the foreground had died, as in the Van Assendelft epitaph (SK-C-509).6 The presence of the St Lidwina of Schiedam led Châtelet to suspect that the panel was made for a family of that town.7
Boon, who published the painting in 1968 after its acquisition by the Rijksmuseum, attributed it to the Master of the St John Panels or his immediate circle on the evidence of the colouring and style. He remarked on the similarity between St Lidwina in the painting and a woodcut of the saint in the book O Lidwi[ne] van Schiedam that was published in Gouda in 1496 (fig. a), and saw this as an argument for identifying the Master of the St John Panels with Huygh Jacobsz. He dated the painting 1485-95 on the basis of the costumes and the hairstyle of the male donor or donors, and regarded it as a youthful work by the artist.8 Châtelet adopted this attribution and noted, as Boon had, that the painting is weaker than the St John panels, but pointed out that what he considered to be the very worn condition of the panel made judgement difficult.
The fairly detailed underdrawing in what appears to be a dry medium displays similarities to that in the Rotterdam St John panels. The care with which the architectural elements and the draperies were defined in the underdrawing, the bold parallel hatching (fig. b) and the way in which the trees are indicated with a few curved lines (fig. c) make it likely that the panel was underdrawn by the same hand as in the Rotterdam paintings. The painted surface, which has survived in reasonable condition in the landscape and the figures, despite the transfer,9 is also related to the latter panels. As regards technique, there are points of correspondence in the fairly dark coloured passages, the dark wine red of St Anne’s gown, the purple of the curtains and the green of the trees. The similarities in underdrawing and use of colour are sufficient to warrant retaining the attribution to the Master of the St John Panels.
(J.P. Filedt Kok)
Literature
Boon 1968; ENP V, 1969, p. 97; Châtelet 1981, pp. 160, 239, no. 149; Boon 1983, p. 43; Uden 1992, p. 157, no. 132; Van Bueren in Utrecht 1999, pp. 13, 15, 92, 273, no. 8
Collection catalogues
1976, p. 634, no. A 4125
Citation
J.P. Filedt Kok, 2010, 'Meester van het Johannes-Altaar, The Virgin and Child with St Anne, Donors and Sts Francis and Lidwina, c. 1490 - c. 1500', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.9056
(accessed 23 November 2024 19:00:27).Figures
fig. b Detail of the infrared reflectogram assembly of SK-A-4125, showing the architecture and figures (© Stichting RKD)
fig. c Detail of the infrared reflectogram assembly of SK-A-4125, showing the trees (© Stichting RKD)
fig. a Lidwina of Schiedam, woodcut title page of the book 'O Lidwi[ne] van Schiedam', published by the Collation Brethren (Brethren of the Common Life) in Gouda, 1496
fig. b Detail of the infrared reflectogram assembly of SK-A-4125, showing the architecture and figures (© Stichting RKD)
fig. c Detail of the infrared reflectogram assembly of SK-A-4125, showing the trees (© Stichting RKD)