The Artist: For a biography of Adriaen Isenbrant, see the Catalogue Entry for
Man Weighing Gold (
32.100.36).
The Painting: This deeply affecting image from the Passion of Christ is based on various biblical accounts in Matthew 27:21–23; Mark 15:1–16; Luke 23:1–25; and John 19:1–6. Therein, Christ was taken by Herod’s soldiers to the praetorium where he was beaten and thrashed by the implements that are tied around the column between Christ and the Virgin Mary in The Met’s painting. The soldiers then dressed Jesus in a regal cloak and crown of thorns, and, placing a reed for a scepter in his bound hands, mocked him as “King of the Jews.” Subsequently, in an episode known as the
Ecce Homo (Behold the Man), Christ was presented by Pontius Pilate to the assembled chief priests and Jews who were asked to decide whether he should be saved or crucified (see also Jan Mostaert,The Met,
1982.60.25).
As the
Mater Dolorosa (Sorrowful Mother), the Virgin Mary, dressed in a white headdress and deep blue robe and mantle, crosses her hands over her heart in a sign of compassion with her son. Her slightly bowed head and somber expression convey a meditative mood. Christ and the Virgin Mary are isolated and separated by the column between them. Above the capitol of the column is a sculpture of Samson and the Lion.[1] Recounted in Judges 14:5–6,[2] the story relates the divine intervention of God to empower Samson to triumph over the sudden attack of the lion, a parallel for God’s support of Christ in his endurance through the ordeal of his Crucifixion and his ultimate glory in the Resurrection. A tiny background scene at the doorway of a palace may represent Christ being brought before Pilate. The narrative is otherwise suppressed in favor of an iconic presentation in which the viewer is directly confronted by Christ and the Virgin. Mary is an exemplar for the appropriate meditative demeanor that the worshiper is encouraged to adopt in the contemplation of and empathy with her son’s agony.
The dramatic close-up image of the
Salvator Coronatus and
Mater Dolorosa evolved from narrative scenes of the Passion of Christ. The pairing became particularly popular in the late fifteenth-and early-sixteenth centuries when bust-length versions were abundantly produced especially in the workshop of Dieric Bouts and his followers (see The Met,
71.156–57).[3] A few other examples exist where Christ and the Virgin share the same space, as in The Met’s painting. In a very damaged tüchlein attributed to Hugo van der Goes, the figures face each other, separated by a double-arched window and a column between them (Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo; Ringbom 1983, p. 143).[4] Print sources also offer parallel imagery to The Met’s painting. A woodcut by an anonymous Netherlandish artist, labeled “Ecce Homo” (but in fact a Man of Sorrows, as Christ’s hands reveal the stigmata of his Crucifixion) shows Christ and the Virgin turned toward each other, apparently engaged in conversation (see fig. 1 above). The accompanying Dutch text below the image emphasizes the Virgin’s intercessory role for the supplicant with Christ. It reads: “Dear child, that I the Virgin have borne / I ask that you save the sinners / Wisest Mother, I promise you always / That I shall be merciful to the sinner.”
As this text makes clear, the Virgin serves a role as intercessor for humankind. Technical examination of The Met painting through x-radiography (see Technical Notes) has revealed that in the initial stages of the composition Christ turned toward his mother as in the woodcut. This plan was changed in the paint layers to a Christ who gazes in the direction of the viewer, soliciting more directly his or her empathy with the Lord in his agony.[5]
There are no details within the painting that provide any clues concerning its commission. Given the substantial size of the painting and its subject matter, it most likely adorned a church chapel, serving there as an enhancement for worship.
The Attribution and Date: Early on, this painting was attributed to Jan Mostaert (Mather 1905, Fitz Gerald 1905). Since Conway (1921) identified it among Isenbrant’s works, there has been consensus (see Friedländer 1933, Weale and Salinger 1947, and other References). Nevertheless, this attribution comes with the caveat that no paintings can be assigned to this artist with any certainty (see The Artist). Despite some alternative suggestions for the artist’s name, however, the group that Friedländer formed on the basis of stylistic relationships and called Isenbrant has remained in use.[6]
The centerpiece of the Isenbrant group is the
Joris Van de Velde Diptych of about 1528, commissioned by a local family for the Church of Our Lady (Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk) in Bruges (figs. 2–4 ).[7] The right wing of the diptych, representing the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin, remains in the Church of Our Lady, while the left wing, showing the Van de Velde family and their patron saints, and its reverse with the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin is in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels. The seated Virgin of the right wing, with her downcast eyes and sweet countenance, and the finely articulated fingers of her expressive hands, is strongly reminiscent of the Virgin types in the paintings of Gerard David about 1510–15 (see The Met,
49.20a–c and
49.7.21), Bruges’s other noted painter of the time who was highly influential on the Isenbrant workshop production. As Jean Wilson has pointed out, the Seven Sorrows Virgin also shares other stylistic traits, among them drapery patterns, with the models of Gerard David’s workshop.[8]
The Met’s
Christ Crowned with Thorns and the Mourning Virgin recalls Isenbrant’s right wing
Seven Sorrows of the Virgin particularly with the use of architecture to organize the composition clearly. The x-radiograph and infrared reflectography of The Met painting show that Isenbrant initially planned a simpler scheme of archways but then proceeded to make considerable changes to the setting to reach a solution (see Technical Notes). However, the final painted surface shows that he followed through with the same interest—as found in the
Van de Velde Diptych—in the embellishment of architectural features with Italianate motifs such as putti, ram’s heads, scrolls, and cavorting dolphins that had filtered into northern paintings through decorative prints in the second quarter of the sixteenth century. Infrared reflectography also reveals the loose and free underdrawn sketch for the figures as well as a number of adjustments to the covering of Christ’s body with the loincloth and cloak to achieve the desired result (see Technical Notes). The Virgin of The Met’s painting is certainly akin to the one of the
Seven Sorrows, especially in the solemn demeanor of the two with their inclined heads and worshipful mode. But in The Met’s painting, the head of the Virgin and her features appear elongated, and her complexion wan and ashen, as would be appropriate given her extreme but silent grief at her son’s suffering. This style moves away from the Davidian model that Isenbrant followed earlier on, and, as such, The Met painting probably dates around 1530–40.
Maryan W. Ainsworth 2023
[1] This has also been identified erroneously as Daniel and the Lion (Weale and Salinger 1947, Gottlieb 1971, Ainsworth and Sintobin 1998). However, the man is clearly dressed as the famous Israelite warrior in armor, who battled the Philistines, not the usually scantily clad Daniel in the lion’s den. See Held 1949.
[2] Judges 14:5–6: Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother. As they were entering the vineyards of Timnah, a young lion suddenly came roaring at him. The Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him in power, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands as he might have torn a young goat.
[3] For this theme and its variation of the Mater Dolorosa and Man of Sorrows, see
Prayers and Portraits, Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych, exh. cat., John Oliver Hand, Catherine A. Metzger, Ron Spronk, eds., National Gallery of Art, Washington; Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, 2006, New Haven, no. 3, pp. 40–49, no. 3; pp. 50–55, no. 4. See also Valentine Henderiks,
Albrecht Bouts (1451/55–1459), Brussels, 2011, pp. 207–90.
[4] See also, Diane Wolfthal,
The Beginnings of Netherlandish Canvas Paintings, 1400–1530, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 45–46, no. 11. Another version attributed to Dieric Bouts and mentioned by Sixten Ringbom (1983, p. 143), is now thought to be composed of an original part representing the
Sorrowing Virgin with a later twentieth-century addition of the Christ Crowned with Thorns (see https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/record?query=Dieric+Bouts&start=124.
[5] Ainsworth and Sintobin 1998, p. 376 also mention an arrow or sword piercing the heart of the Virgin, seen in the x-radiograph and the infrared reflectogram. The current technical investigation could not substantiate this earlier observation.
[6] “The Master of the Van de Velde Portraits” suggested by Jean Wilson (“Adriaen Isenbrant and the Problem of his Oeuvre, Thoughts on Authorship, Style, and the Methodology of Connoisseurship,”
Oud Holland 109 (1995), p. 14; and Albert Cornelis indicated by Lorne Campbell (
National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings with French Paintings Before 1600, London, 2014, vol. 1, pp. 276–77.
[7] See Till-Holger Borchert in
Bruges et la Renaissance, De Memling à Pourbus, Notices, exh. cat., Maximiliaan P. J. Martrens, ed., Memlingmuseum, Bruges, 1998, pp. 68–71, no. 40. For the dating of the diptych, see Hugo van der Velden, “Diptych Altarpieces and the Principle of Dexterity,” in
Essays in Context, Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych, John Oliver Hand and Ron Spronk, eds., Cambridge, 2006, pp. 139–42.
[8] Jean Wilson,
Painting in Bruges at the Close of the Middle Ages, Studies in Society and Visual Culture, University Park, Pa., 1998, pp. 93–103.