Two wings of a triptych with the donor, Thomas Isaacq (?-1539/40), accompanied by St Thomas (outer left wing), and the donor’s wife accompanied by St Margaret (outer right wing)

c. 1505 - c. 1510

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 89.8 cm × width 28.7 cm
depth 9 cm

Inscriptions

coat of arms, centre left, on Thomas Isaacq’s sleeve: quartered, 1 and 4 quartered, i and iv quartered, A and D, a gold castle with a blue gate on a red field (Castile), B and C, a red lion rampant on a silver field (Leon); 2 and 3 divided vertically, A, six red pales on a gold field (Aragon), B, quartered diagonally, a and d, four red pales on a gold field, b and c, a black eagle on a silver field (jointly Sicily); at the base a triangle with a green pomegranate with red seeds on a silver field (Granada); 2 and 3 quartered again, i, a horizontal silver band on a red field (Austria), ii, gold fleurs-de-lis strewn on a blue field, with a border chequered red and silver (New Burgundy, in fact the arms of France with added border), iii, six diagonal bands, blue and gold, with a red border (Old Burgundy), iv, a gold lion rampant on a black field (Brabant); an inescutcheon divided vertically, 1, a black lion rampant on a gold field (Flanders); 2, a crowned red eagle on a silver field (Tyrol)

Technical notes

The support of each wing is a single vertically grained oak plank. Since the panel is fixed in the 19th-century frame no dendrochronological investigation was possible, and only the sight size could be measured (89.8 x 28.7 cm). The white ground must have been applied when the panels were already framed, for although the frames prevent the detection of unpainted edges, there seems to be a well-preserved barbe on all sides of both panels. Infrared reflectography revealed an underdrawing in a dry medium (probably chalk) for the contours in the faces and the hands in both wings which looks rather mechanical. The underdrawing is most elaborate in the hands of the donor’s wife, while there are ‘pentimenti’ in the donor’s fingers. A streaky priming seems to have been applied on top of the white ground. The figures were reserved. The faces and hands were painted rather thinly and flatly. Strong highlights were applied to the clothes, ornamental details and landscape.

Scientific examination and reports

condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 9 May 2006
infrared reflectography: M. Wolters / M. Leeflang [2], RKD/RMA, no. RKDG394, 9 May 2006

Condition

Fair. The paint layers of both wings is slightly abraded and the varnish is discoloured.

Provenance

...; sale, Balthasar Theodorus Baron van Heemstra van Froma van Eibersburen (1809-78, The Hague), The Hague (C. van Doorn), 16 February 1880, no. 2, with the supposed centre panel (SK-A-962-A), fl. 255, to Van der Kellen [probably David van der Kellen Jr (1827-95)] for the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. no. 4790);¹ transferred to the museum, 1885; on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, since 2002

Object number: SK-A-962-B

The artist

Master of the Magdalen Legend (active in Brussels c. 1490-1520)

In 1900, on the occasion of an exhibition in London of two panels from the legend of Mary Magdalen, Friedländer attributed a group of works to the master whom he christened with that name. In 1927 Tombu reconstructed the triptych with scenes from the saint’s legend, the panels of which were dispersed over several museums.² She then acted on Hulin de Loo’s advice by compiling an extensive oeuvre catalogue of the master’s work, which in addition to altarpieces consists of numerous Madonnas and rulers’ portraits. She described the artist’s development in three periods between 1490 and 1515. In 1935 Friedländer largely adopted Tombu’s attributions in volume XII of his survey of early Netherlandish painting.

Two attempts have been made to identify the master. Hulin de Loo (as reported by Tombu in 1929) believed that he was Beernaert van der Stockt (c. 1460-1538), son of the Brussels city painter Vranke van der Stockt. Friedländer identified him as Pieter van Coninxloo, court painter to Philip the Handsome, who was active between 1481 and 1513.

The conviction that this very diverse group of paintings could not be attributed to a single hand was strengthened by the Bruges exhibition of 1969 and elaborated in various publications by C. Périer-D’Ieteren and M. de Vrij. The latter reduced the master’s oeuvre to 12 paintings, and believed that his period of activity could be situated around 1520 in the circle of Bernard van Orley. The paintings which most specialists accept as being by the master include the wings of the Thomas Isaacq Triptych (SK-A-962-B, SK-A-962-C). De Vrij attributed the fairly large group of Madonnas to the Master of the Willem van Bibaut Diptych, but lately this group has been returned to the Master of the Magdalen Legend as early work. Considerable doubts remain about the traditional attribution of the portraits of most of the rulers, such as the Portrait of Philip the Handsome (SK-A-2854), which is currently regarded as anonymous, possibly after a prototype by Pieter van Coninxloo.

References
Friedländer 1900; Tombu 1927; Tombu 1929b; Tombu 1930; Friedländer XII, 1935, pp. 15-24, 165-70; Winkler in Thieme/Becker XXXVII, 1950, p. 211; De Vos et al. in Bruges 1969, pp. 130-50, 264-80; ENP XII, 1975, pp. 13-17, 90-95, 130-34; Périer-D’Ieteren in Turner 1996, XX, pp. 715-16; De Vrij 2000; Syfer and Dubois in Brussels IV, 2006, pp. 98-143; Dubois in Bücken/Steyaert 2013, pp. 339-42

(J.P. Filedt Kok)

Entry

These two wings originally belonged to a triptych with a Virgin and Child as the centre panel (fig. a).³ The frontal Virgin and Child on that panel are derived from a model by Rogier van der Weyden.⁴ The Virgin and Child with two angels holding a crown above them are set against a landscape containing a walled garden. The donors are depicted on the wings with their hands joined in prayer, with the garden wall and the landscape from the centre panel extending behind them. The gatehouse on the left of the centre panel is continued on the left wing.

The original triptych was reconstructed back in 1929 by Tombu, and on Hulin de Loo’s suggestion she identified the donor as Thomas Isaacq, who died in Brussels in 1539/40. In 1491 he became Officer of Arms of the Golden Fleece with the name Fusil, and in 1493, under Philip the Handsome and later Emperor Charles V he was made King of Arms of the Golden Fleece, and was known from then on as ‘Golden Fleece’.⁵ In the painting he is wearing the coat of arms of Philip the Handsome with the Order of the Golden Fleece on his sleeve,⁶ and has St Thomas with his set-square behind him. His wife on the right wing is accompanied by St Margaret with a staff topped with a cross.

The large broad heads of the donor’s and their patron saints are typical of the core group of paintings by the Master of the Magdalen Legend, to whom these panels were attributed by Friedländer as long ago as 1903. Périer-D’Ieteren pointed out in 1975 that it was not just the facial features and manner of painting that were characteristic of the master, but also the cursory but powerful underdrawing, probably made with black chalk.⁷ She also noted that the original centre panel (fig. a) has another kind of underdrawing done with the brush, with hatchings, which points to another hand, possibly that of a pupil in the master’s workshop.⁸

Tombu cited the evidence of the clothing and the woman’s white linen cap to date the painting between 1505 and 1510, in the master’s middle period. In 1935 the identification of the donor as Thomas Isaacq was an argument for Friedländer to identify the artist as the Brussels court painter Pieter van Coninxloo. Thomas Isaacq was a member of a delegation sent to Henry VIII of England in 1515 to negotiate the king’s possible marriage to Margaret of Austria. The emissaries took a portrait of Margaret painted by Pieter van Coninxloo with them.⁹

The donors painted on the inside of these two panels, the man accompanied by John the Baptist and the woman by St Adrian, must be of a later date and are attributed to Pieter Pourbus the Elder (SK-A-962-C).¹⁰ When the wings were bought by the museum they flanked a poorly preserved canvas with Christ on the Cross, which is attributed to the southern Netherlands school, late 17th century (SK-A-962-A).

(J.P. Filedt Kok)

Literature

Friedländer 1900, p. 256; Tombu 1929a; Tombu 1929b, p. 268; Friedländer XII, 1935, pp. 23, 166, no. 11; Baes-Dondeyne in Bruges 1969, pp. 139-41, 270-71, no. 68; ENP XII, 1975, pp. 17, 91, no. 11; Périer-D’Ieteren 1975; De Vrij 2000, pp. 19-20; Van Wegen 2005, pp. 234-37; Carlier 2007, pp. 94-95

Download Bibliografie (PDF)

Collection catalogues

1887, p. 183, no. 1571 (as Flemish school, c. 1530); 1903, p. 30, no. 346 (as Flemish school, c. 1530); 1976, p. 635, no. A 962b

Citation

J.P. Filedt Kok, 2010, 'Meester van de Legende van de Heilige Magdalena, Two wings of a triptych with the donor, Thomas Isaacq (?-1539/40), accompanied by St Thomas (outer left wing), and the donor’s wife accompanied by St Margaret (outer right wing), c. 1505 - c. 1510', in Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.9057

(accessed 10 November 2024 06:29:41).

Figures

fig. a Master of the Magdalen Legend, centre panel of a triptych with *The Virgin and Child at a Window Crowned by Angels*, c. 1505-10. Oil on panel, 87 x 66.5 cm. Present whereabouts unknown (© Stichting RKD)