❧ WRITTEN BY W. H. JAMES WEALE ❧
ARTICLE IV
THE Exhibition included a number of other works attributed to Memlinc. Three of these are supposed to have been executed in his early years: the Passion of Saint Sebastian (69), belonging to the Brussels Museum; the triptych with the Deposition of Christ in the centre, and Saints James and Christopher (92), formerly at Liphook in the Heath collection, now the property of M. R. von Kaufmann; and the Blessed Virgin and Child with a donor protected by Saint Anthony. The first of these was probably painted by a follower of Dirk Bouts; the second by an imitator of Bouts and Memlinc; the third only has any claim to be considered the work of Memlinc; the date 1472, inscribed in the background, is certainly modern, but probably copied from the frame when this was discarded. The Blessed Virgin and Child (78), lent by Mr. A. Thiem, is a school picture in not very good condition; another (83) belonging to Baron P. Bethune, having long served as the lid of a miller’s flour box, has very little of the original work left. A Madonna enthroned with two angels (82) entirely overpainted, lent by Mrs. Stephenson Clarke, and another belonging to the Museum of Woerlitz (29), are like similar pictures in the Museum at Vienna and in the possession of the Duke of Westminster, works probably painted after Memlinc’s death from his patterns by Louis Boels. The three large panels from the monastery of Najera (84), belonging to the Antwerp Museum, are fine decorative works painted about 1490 by an imitator of Memlinc and Van Eyck. As to the Annunciation lent by Prince Radziwill (85), said by Dr. Waagen to have been painted in 1482, I should, looking at the colour and execution, think it at least twenty years later, and am convinced that Memlinc never had anything whatever to do with it. Mr. Hulin calls it Memlinc’s most perfect composition; Dr. Friedländer, ‘an extremely original composition of remarkable delicacy of sentiment and execution’ (von höchst eigenartiger Komposition und besonderer Feinheit in Empfindung und Durchführung); while a writer in the Athenaeum of September 20 says: ‘In conception it belongs entirely to the master, and the composition is as fine and original as anything to be found in his work,’ and thinks that ‘it was a beautiful and new conceit thus to represent the Virgin as sinking down tremblingly at the angel’s word, but held by the supporting arms of two other attendant angels who look up to her with reassuring smiles.’ Now it is certain that Memlinc, far from being an innovator and an inventor of what the writer properly calls new conceits, was a faithful follower of ecclesiastical tradition, and would never have dreamt of introducing into the representation of this mystery these two sentimental and affected angels. No doubt the Gospel says that Mary was troubled at the words of the angel, but there is nothing to warrant this impertinent addition. The fact is that the beautiful long waving line of the Virgin’s robe with its sudden returning lines has made these critics shut their eyes to these points, which I think are by themselves sufficient evidence that the picture is the work of a sixteenth-century innovator. As to the six panels (176) lent by the Strassburg Museum, it is an outrage to suggest that Memlinc was their author. ¶ After Memlinc, the greatest master who worked at Bruges was another foreigner, Gerard son of John, son of David, a native of Oudewater in South Holland, who in all probability learnt his art either at Haarlem or under Dirk Bouts at Louvain. He came to Bruges at the end of 1483, and was admitted into the Guild of Saint Luke as free master on January 14, 1484. Although we have no written evidence as to his history previous to that date, yet certain details in his works make it almost certain that he had travelled in Italy after the termination of his apprenticeship. Bruges still possesses the earliest works by him of which the authenticity is established; these with a number of others by his followers not only afforded an excellent opportunity for studying the variations in his manner, but showed the great influence he exercised over his contemporaries and followers. In 1488 Gerard David was commissioned to paint two pictures by the magistrates elected by the three members of Flanders to succeed those who had been deposed after the imprisonment of Maximilian; they were intended by them to commemorate the execution of the judge Peter Lanchals and other members of the late administration who, having been found guilty of corruption and malversation, had been condemned to death and executed. Gerard, however, instead of painting the history of Lanchals, took for his theme an analogous subject originally recorded by Herodotus, which he probably drew from the then much better known works of Valerius Maximus. By so doing he avoided the resentment of the friends of the deposed magistrates, while the subject chosen was equally well adapted to recall to the sitting magistrates that they must be honest and impartial. In the first of the two panels (121), which we reproduce (as the frontispiece of this number), Cambyses, accompanied by his court, is represented entering the hall of justice and ordering the arrest of the unjust judge Sisamnes. In the background Sisamnes is seen at the porch of his house receiving a bag of money from a suitor. The groups of nude children and the garlands of fruit and flowers, the earliest instance of the occurrence of such details in a Netherlandish picture, must have been copied from Venetian or Florentine pictures, and the two Medicean cameos are almost proofs of a visit to Florence; one of these, the Judgement of Marsyas by Apollo, is represented as a breast ornament worn by Lucretia Tornabuoni (?) in the portrait of that lady by Botticelli in the Städel Institute at Frankfort. It is interesting to note that the square seen in the background is an almost exact representation of the Square of St. John at Bruges. The flaying of Sisamnes (122) is an extremely realistic picture vigorously painted with wonderful finish. The composition and pose of the figures in both scenes remind one of Carpaccio, the heads have a great deal of character, and the hands are admirably modelled. For the two pictures, which were not completed until 1498, Gerard received in three instalments the sum of £14 10s. ¶ The National Gallery contains two pictures painted between 1500 and 1510, both formerly in the Cathedral of Saint Donatian at Bruges, the one an altar-piece executed for Richard De Visch Van der Capelle, who held the office of cantor in that church; the other, the dexter wing of a triptych painted for Bernardine Salviati, a canon of the same cathedral. These of course were not at Bruges, but I mention them here because they form a connecting link with the triptych representing the Baptism of Christ (123), of which the centre and the inner face of the shutters were painted before 1502, and the outer in 1508. The next work in order of date, and in my opinion David’s masterpiece, is the picture (124) presented by him in 1509 to the convent of the Carmelite nuns of Sion at Bruges, and now in the Rouen Museum; it represents the Blessed Virgin and Child surrounded by virgin saints and two angels, the one playing a mandoline, the other a viola, whilst at the extreme ends in the background the painter has represented himself and his young wife. The composition is not quite original; Memlinc had already painted for John Du Celier a small Sacra Conversazione now in the Louvre, and another artist who has not as yet been identified had executed in 1489, for the Guild of Saints Mary Magdalene, Katherine, and Barbara, an altar-piece (114) which doubtless suggested not only the composition of this picture but the mode of characterizing the saints. The author of this earlier work, if one may judge by its colouring, was probably accustomed to design tapestries; most of the figures are exceedingly plain and wanting in expression, whereas in Gerard’s picture the colouring is harmonious and the figures remarkable for beauty of expression, the angels being amongst the most charming conceptions realized by the school.
TRIPTYCH: THE BELESSED VIRGIN AND CHILD, ST. CATHERINE, AND ST. BARBARA; BY CORNELIA CNOOP, WIFE OF GERARD DAVID; IN THE POSSESSION OF MESSRS. P. AND D. COLNARGHI
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LARGER IMAGE
The large triptych (125) lent by M. de Somzée, with life-size figures of Saint Anne with the Blessed Virgin and Child in the centre, and Saints Nicholas and Anthony of Padua on the shutters, painted for some Spanish church, is a late work inferior in execution to those already mentioned. Six other panels with scenes from the lives of the two saints, said to have been the predella of this altar-piece, not exhibited, are on the contrary charming works; they are now in the possession of Lady Wantage. Two shutters of a triptych (138) with full-length figures of four saints, lent by Mr. James Simon, of Berlin, appear to me to be authentic works; the Saints Christopher and Anthony are especially good. ¶ Of the other eleven works attributed to Gerard by their owners or by those who have written on the exhibition, I can only say caveat lector. We know no picture painted by Gerard before 1488 or after 1512, and the variation of style in the works executed between those dates of which the authenticity is established makes it difficult to say with certainty that any picture painted at Bruges between 1512 and 1527 is or is not by him, and it is certainly mere guesswork to attribute to him any pictures of an earlier date than 1488; it is indeed probable that, being a stranger, he would during his first four years at Bruges have confined himself to the execution of small pictures of religious subjects which would meet with a ready sale. The Adoration of the Magi (135) lent by the Brussels Museum, formerly supposed to be by John van Eyck, was first attributed to Gerard by Dr. Scheibler. Dr. Friedländer believes it to be an original work of about 1500, often copied. It was originally in the Premonstratensian abbey of Saint Michael at Antwerp, and I doubt its being a Bruges picture or an original composition. The original painting was certainly executed shortly after 1490 and was copied by the miniaturist who adorned a Dominican Breviary which was in the possession of Francis de Roias in Spain before 1497. ¶ The style of the figures and the colouring of the Annunciation (128) lent by the Museum of Sigmaringen are very much in Gerard’s manner, and it may possibly be by him; the Städel Museum at Frankfort contains a copy of these two panels apparently painted by a Netherlandish artist in the Peninsula or by a Portuguese artist in the Low Countries, the inscription on the border of the angel’s vestments being in Portuguese: Modar de Senor. A triptych representing the Deposition of Christ (126), which though thrice restored, in 1675, 1773, and 1827, is still in fairly good condition, was first included by me in 1863 among the works by Gerard on the authority of a document of the year 1675, preserved in the archives of the Confraternity of the Holy Blood, to which the picture has always belonged. It certainly differs considerably from the pictures painted by him between 1488 and 1510, and shows a strong influence of Quentin Metsys, and I do not think that the opinion of two or three modern critics warrants the rejection of the evidence in its favour. The picture was certainly painted c. 1520 in Bruges, where several old copies of it were preserved until the middle of the last century. ¶ A Holy Family (343) lent by M. Martin Le Roi is an excellent work painted about the same time, showing even more strongly the influence of Quentin Metsys, and I have little doubt painted by an Antwerp master. Yet this is classed by Dr. Friedländer as an excellent work of David’s later time (Vortreffliches Werk aus der Spätzeit Davids), although there is neither tradition nor documentary evidence in favour of this attribution. The Transfiguration (117) belonging to the church of Our Lady, another work of about the same date, is of interest as representing an event rarely treated by the early masters of the Netherlands. The composition shows an Italian influence; the figures, especially those in the group on the left, that of Gerard; the colouring is light and cool; the picture has suffered very much from neglect. The shutters of this altar-piece, not exhibited, were painted by Peter Pourbus. The lunette (149) lent by Baron de Schickler is a fine piece, but the types of the figures are unlike any in Gerard’s authentic works. ¶ Gerard was not only a painter but also a miniaturist, and as such a member of the Guild of Saint John and the head of a school of miniaturists. Two specimens of his own work—(129) Saint John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness and the Baptism of Christ—and three by his wife, Cornelia Cnoop, were formerly in the Cistercian abbey of Saint Mary in the Dunes; the three last (130), lent by Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi, are here reproduced; they have been framed as a triptych.
[The previous articles of this series were published in Nos. 1, 2, and 3 of THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE for March, April, and May, 1903.]