The Adoration of the Magi

The support is a single vertically grained oak panel, 1.3 cm thick. The panel is bevelled on all sides on the front, along the barbe, and is slightly bevelled on all sides on the reverse. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1498. The panel could have been ready for use by 1509, but a date in or after 1523 is more likely. The white ground, visible along the edges, was applied in the frame. There are unpainted edges of 1.2-1.5 cm on all sides (painted surface: 48.5 x 34 cm), which have been planed down, and remains of a barbe (there appears to be a double barbe on the right side). A thick layer of lead white was applied on the ground. Infrared reflectography has revealed a rather nondescript underdrawing in a dry medium (fig. b), (fig. c). Comparison of the underdrawing and the paint layers reveals a number of minor changes in the main figures, for example in the body of Christ, the background figures and the architecture (fig. c). The paint layers were built up fairly precisely and in a refined manner. There are no noticeable brushstrokes. The main figures were reserved, and the goblet in front of the Virgin was painted on top of the paint layer of the table. Rather thick highlights were used for the ornamental details, and the final highlights were applied on top of the relatively flat paint layers. There is a thick layer of lead white, applied in two layers in the sky area. Parts of the architecture and the mountains on the right were painted over the sky. The further structure of the paint layers and the pigments used (azurite, vermilion, red lake etc.) are common for the period; there is a black layer of underpaint in the purple cloak of the king on the right.

Wallert et al. 2009

Good. There are old worm holes in the panel. There is some raised paint along the grain of the wood, mainly in the foreground figures.

…; ? estate inventory, Anna van Renesse, Lady of Assendelft (1622-67), Kasteel Assumburgh, near Heemskerk, 1667, ‘Old gentleman’s room above the great chamber’ (‘een oud schilderije’);¹¹Transcribed in Wildeman 1905, p. 46. ? her cousin, George Frederik van Renesse, Baron van Elderen (1620-81), Kasteel ’s Herenelderen, Tongeren;²²Wildeman 1905, p. 42. his granddaughter, Anna Margaretha, Gravin van Rennesse van Elderen (1703-75), and her husband, Frederik Johan van Isendoorn à Blois (1699-1771), Kasteel Cannenburg, Vaassen;³³Lunsingh Scheurleer 1990, pp. 203-04. recorded in the ‘cabinet of the apartment’ at Kasteel Cannenburg, Vaassen, no. 8 or 23, after 1726;⁴⁴Between 1726 and 1742 Anna Margaretha, Gravin van Renesse van Elderen kept an account of the decoration of Kasteel Cannenburg: AG, AHC, no. 407; see Lunsingh Scheurleer 1990, pp. 203-04. their grandson, Frederik Carel Theodoor, Baron van Isendoorn à Blois (1784-1865), Kasteel Cannenburg, Vaassen; his sale, Amsterdam (C.F. Roos), 19 August 1879, no. 1, as 15th-century Flemish school, fl. 2,200, to J.W. Kaiser, for the museum;⁵⁵NHA, ARM, Kop, inv. 39, p. 273, no. 40 (1 August 1879), no. 41 (20 August 1879); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 161, no. 323 (12 August 1879), no. 326 (27 August 1879); on loan to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2004-10

ObjectNumber: SK-A-671

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.¹³¹³For the kings’ names see the entry on Geertgen tot Sint Jans’s painting, SK-A-2150. For the iconography see Kirschbaum I, 1968, cols. 439-549; Smits 1934, pp. 33-34, 62-65; Duwe 1994, pp. 162-67, who wrongly identified the black king as Caspar and incorrectly assumed that the other two kings were given the likenesses of named men who commissioned the painting.

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).¹⁴¹⁴For the tree of Jesse see SK-A-3901, attributed to Geertgen tot Sint Jans. The butler’s dream and the Tiburtine Sibyl as prefigurations of the Nativity, together with King David and the three ‘mighty men’ in combination with the adoration of the Magi, are depicted in the 15th-century block book Speculum humanae salvationis; see Wilson/Lancaster Wilson 1984, pp. 156-59. It is likely that Mostaert modelled these details on the woodcuts in the Speculum, which were executed c. 1460-70. Oddly, though, the butler dreaming about the vine is wearing a crown, as pointed out by C.A. de Chavannes, which may indicate confusion with the story of King Astyages, who appears a few pages earlier in the Speculum as the prefiguration of the annunciation to Zacharias; see Wilson/Lancaster Wilson 1984, p. 146. The tree of Jesse is depicted a little differently in the Speculum as the annunciation of the birth of the Virgin; see Wilson/Lancaster Wilson 1984, pp. 148-49.

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.¹⁵¹⁵Ringbom 1984, pp. 100-04.

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.¹⁶¹⁶With thanks to Marieke de Winkel. 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.¹⁷¹⁷Wildeman 1905; Scholtens 1947, pp. 90-93. 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.¹⁸¹⁸See Buurman 1990, p. 17; Lunsingh Scheurleer 1990, pp. 203-04. With thanks to R.E.O. Ekkart for kindly drawing this to my attention.

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.¹⁹¹⁹Illustrated in ENP X, 1973, no. 5, pl. 7, no. 35, pl. 22, no. 38, pl. 23; see also Filedt Kok/De Winkel 2005, pp. 386, 391, 395. 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)

Glück 1896, pp. 271-72; Benoît 1899, p. 370; Friedländer 1905a, p. 520; Pierron 1912, pp. 61, 91; Friedländer 1916, pp. 147, 189; Friedländer X, 1932, p. 120, no. 8; Smits 1933, pp. 33-34, 62-65; Hoogewerff II, 1937, pp. 463-65 (as c. 1510); Amsterdam 1958, no. 83 (as c. 1515-20); Reznicek 1962; Boon 1966, p. 63 (as c. 1510-15); ENP X, 1973, p. 68, no. 8; Duwe 1994, pp. 162-67; Snyder in Turner 1996, XXII, p. 200 (as c. 1510-16); Filedt Kok in Rotterdam 2008a, pp. 166-68, no. 24

1880, pp. 429-30, no. 510 (as Flemish school); 1887, p. 67, no. 533 (as Dutch school, c. 1490-95); 1903, p. 135, no. 1674; 1934, p. 200, no. 1674; 1960, p. 217, no. 1674 (as c. 1515-20); 1976, p. 400, no. A 671

J.P. Filedt Kok, 2010, 'Jan Jansz Mostaert, The Adoration of the Magi, Haarlem, c. 1520 - c. 1525', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4657