The Adoration of the Magi

Entry

15th-century examples of this scene, which is based on Matthew 2:1-12, focused on the foreground figures, but in Mostaert’s painting there is a magnificent vista of a landscape in the background which subtly reflects the main subject. As is the case with Geertgen tot Sint Jans’s Adoration of the Magi (SK-A-2150 or fig. d) it was customary to depict the moment when Caspar, the eldest of the three kings, who also represented Europe, gave the Christ Child a goblet filled with gold coins, but here it is the slightly younger King Melchior, who symbolises Asia, who is lifting the lid of his gift of a goblet of incense, a reference to Christ’s divinity. Leaning forward behind him on the left is the black King Balthazar with his gift, while Melchior kneels to the right of the Virgin and Child, with his opened goblet standing on a small table in front of the Virgin. Two men (Joseph and one of the kings’ servants) are conversing in the left middleground beside half of a classical gateway decorated with reliefs. Beyond that the kings’ retinue can be seen among overgrown ruins. The ox and the ass are peering over a ledge on the far left. As in Geertgen’s painting, the ruins are probably intended to be those of King David’s palace, for the birth of Christ, who was descended from David, signified the transition from the Old Covenant to the New.¹³

The grisaille reliefs on the pillar and architrave of the gate depict the foretelling of the birth of Christ in the shape of the dream of Pharaoh’s butler (Genesis 40:9-11), the Tiburtine Sibyl, who prophesied the birth to Emperor Augustus, and against a red background the scene of King David refusing to drink the water that the three ‘mighty men’ had drawn from the well of Bethlehem at great risk of their lives (2 Samuel 23:15-18). On the architrave is the tree of Jesse showing Christ’s descent from David (Isaiah 11:1-12).¹⁴

Mostaert reinforced the intimacy of his Adoration of the Magi by placing the half-lengths of the principal figures in the foreground. As is the case with a number of late 15th-century Netherlandish devotional paintings, the scene focuses on the main subject. Mostaert’s immediate model must have been Hugo van der Goes’s Adoration of the Magi, which is known from copies (fig. a), where Caspar, the eldest king, occupies Joseph’s position in the present painting.¹⁵

As noted above, it is rare to find an Adoration of the Magi in which the Christ Child receives a present from the middle-aged King Melchior, who is also usually bearded. It is likely, then, that this is a portrait of the person who commissioned the painting. Melchior is also wearing a hooded travelling cloak. The simple cloak, admittedly, has a timeless look, but the hood, which is typical of Spanish cloaks, was certainly fashionable at the time. It is true that Melchior’s attire is fanciful, but it does have a basis in contemporary costume, as does the Virgin’s dress with its fashionable neckline.¹⁶ The modest size of the painting, the use of half-length figures to enhance the intimacy of the scene, the individualised features of Melchior and Caspar all indicate that the painting was not made for public display but was intended for private devotion.

The figures were prepared with a cursory and not very characteristic underdrawing in a dry medium in the contours, and in one or two cases with straight parallel hatching for the shaded areas (fig. b). Mostaert departed from the underdrawing of the contours slightly, especially in the middleground (fig. c). The paint was applied in two or three layers, with close attention to the details and ornamentation of the sumptuous clothing and the goldsmithing work. Great care was taken over the background, the ruined buildings, the figures and the landscape. Renaissance motifs were subtly introduced into the architecture of the pillar and the foliate decoration on the architrave.

The good condition and high quality of the panel were already being hailed when the Rijksmuseum acquired it in 1879 as a work from the school of Jan van Eyck at the auction of the contents of Kasteel Cannenburg in Gelderland. There is a distinct possibility that the painting, which is first listed in an account of the decorations of Kasteel Cannenburg made between 1726 and 1742, belonged to the lords of Assendelft in the 17th century, who may have been descendants of the person who commissioned it, and was kept in Kasteel Assumburgh near Heemstede.¹⁷ If that is the case, it must have passed by descent to George Frederik van Renesse, who transferred the contents of Assumburgh to Kasteel ’s Herenelderen (southern Netherlands) in 1669, from which it was taken to Cannenburg in the 18th century.¹⁸

The attribution of this painting has never been questioned since 1896, when Glück attributed it to Jan Mostaert in a convincing attempt to reconstruct his oeuvre. It is generally regarded as an early work. Features that are typical of the artist’s style are the marked difference between the treatment of the foreground and the background, the detailed yet rather flat depiction of the foreground figures, and the lively rendering of those in the landscape background. There is a close correlation with the landscape with figures on the two wings of the memorial triptych for Albrecht van Adrichem and his third wife in Brussels (SK-A-2123 fig. b), and with the one in the background of the male portraits in Brussels (particularly the structure, and the white vines against a red background on the pillar) and Liverpool.¹⁹ These similarities argue for a date in the same period as the Brussels wings, that is to say c. 1522-26, which is later than has been assumed hitherto.

(Jan Piet Filedt Kok)