Master of the Lille Adoration

The Holy Kinship

c. 1520 - c. 1530

Technical notes

The support consists of two vertically grained oak planks (21.7 and 21.1 cm), approx. 0.8-1.5 cm thick. It has probably been slightly planed down and reduced in size on all sides, with the possible exception of the bottom. All the sides are bevelled, but only the bevelling at the bottom may be original. At the top of the reverse there is a horizontal canal for a dowel connecting both planks. Two thin horizontal strips of wood were later added to the reverse. A whitish coloured ground is visible. Traces of an underdrawing in a dry medium, consisting of hatchings and contours, are visible to the naked eye and with infrared-photography in the reds. The handling of the paint is very draughtsman-like, with an extensive use of highlights and scumbles. The contours of the hands and faces were drawn with black paint.

Scientific examination and reports

  • condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 19 juli 2007

Condition

Fair. The varnish is discoloured.

Provenance

…; sale, Adriaan van der Willigen (1766-1841, Haarlem) and his nephew Dr Adriaan van der Willigen Pz (1810-76, Haarlem), sold on the premises (A.G. de Visser), 20 (21) april 1874 sqq., no. 45, as Dutch school, 16th century (‘la presentation au Temple’), fl. 40, to Willem J.M. Engelberts (1809-87);1Copy RKD. ...; Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. no. 93), 1880; transferred to the museum, 1885; on loan to the Gemeentemuseum, Weert, since 1993

ObjectNumber: SK-A-849

The artist

Biography

Master of the Lille Adoration (active in Antwerp c. 1520-30)

A small group of panel paintings was attributed by Glück, Baldass and Friedländer to Dirck Jacobsz Vellert (? Amsterdam c. 1480-85 - Antwerp shortly after 30 December 1547), who was inscribed as a master painter and a glazier in the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp in 1511, and served as its dean in 1518 and 1526. He is known to have been primarily active as a designer of both monumental stained-glass windows and small roundels, as well as a printmaker.

The two core paintings which were attributed to Vellert are a triptych with The Adoration of the Magi in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, and The Adoration of the Shepherds in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.2Illustrated in ENP, XII, 1975, nos. 139-40, pls. 68-69. These paintings and a few others attributed to Vellert in the past comprise a stylistically coherent group. The brightly coloured paint layer with fluid brushstrokes is rather thin, which allows much of the quivering contour lines of the underdrawing to show through. The figures have expressively twisted poses and rather grotesque heads. While the attribution to Vellert of these works had already been challenged in the past, Konowitz argued convincingly in her article of 1995 that the paintings differ significantly from Vellert’s secure works in other media. She showed that they are more closely linked to paintings by the Antwerp Mannerists than to Vellert. She attributed these and a few other paintings to the Master of the Lille Adoration, who derives his name from The Adoration of the Shepherds in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lille.

References
Glück 1901; Baldass 1922; Friedländer XII, 1935, pp. 42-51; ENP XII, 1975, pp. 27-31; Lammertse in coll. cat. Rotterdam 1994, pp. 298-301; Konowitz 1995

(J.P. Filedt Kok)

Entry

This fragmentary panel matches the central section of the painting in the Stiftsgalerie in Kremsmünster, in which the holy kinship is situated in a composition divided into three parts by the architectural setting (fig. a). Baldass first attributed the Kremsmünster painting to Dirck Vellert in 1922, but it is now one of the works given to the Master of the Lille Adoration by Konowitz.3Baldass 1922, pp. 163-65; Friedländer XII, 1935, p. 49; ENP XII, 1975, p. 30; Konowitz 1995, p. 4. For the subject see The Holy Kinship attributed to Geertgen tot Sint Jans in the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-500).

In this fragment, which has been sawn down on both sides and at the top, Joseph, St Anne and the Virgin and Child are grouped around a dish of fruit and surrounded by several male members of the family. It is probably a fragment of a centre panel of a triptych, the wings of which have been lost. The latter probably resembled a pair of wings now in Herdingen Castle (fig. b),4Vuijk 1946; the Herdingen panels are probably sawn down at the top. with the same scenes of the women and children of the holy kinship as are found on either side of the central group in the Kremsmünster painting.5Lammertse in Rotterdam 1994, p. 302, note 7, pointed out that the Herdingen wings are probably original and that the Kremsmünster panel is a copy. The size and scale of the figures indicate that the centre panel in the Rijksmuseum must have belonged to a smaller version of the triptych than the one from which the Herdingen wings came. Together with its lost wings, the centre panel in Amsterdam formed a triptych, as did the Herdingen wings with their lost centre panel, the entire composition of which is seen in the Kremsmünster version. The triptych to which the Herdingen wings probably belonged had the same shape and dimensions as the triptych by the Master of the Lille Adoration in Rotterdam, which seems to be closely related in style and technique.6Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, nos. 139-40, pls. 68-69; see Lammertse in Rotterdam 1994, pp. 298-302, no. 67. In both cases the wings are 31 cm wide, which would make the missing centre panel approx. 70 cm wide as well.

The fragment described here is in the same transparent and draughtsman-like technique as the Rotterdam triptych, and could therefore have been executed by the same hand or in the same workshop. Further examination with infrared reflectography and dendrochronology of this fragment, the Herdingen wings and the Kremsmünster panel might provide more certainty about the attribution of the various versions to the Master of the Lille Adoration.

(J.P. Filedt Kok)

Literature

Friedländer XII, 1935, p. 49 (as attributed to Dirk Jacobsz Vellert and copy after a painting in Stiftsgalerie, Kremsmünster); ENP, XII, 1975, p. 30 (as attributed to Dirk Jacobsz Vellert and copy after a painting in Stiftsgalerie, Kremsmünster)

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Collection catalogues

1887, p. 28, no. 29 (as German school, c. 1530); 1903, p. 3, no. 18 (as German school, c. 1530); 1976, p. 564, no. A 849 (as copy after Dirck Jacobsz Vellert)

Citation

J.P. Filedt Kok, 2010, 'Meester van de Aanbidding te Lille, The Holy Kinship, c. 1520 - c. 1530', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6388

(accessed 23 May 2025 11:15:22).

Figures

  • fig. a Anonymous, Portrait of Ruben Parduyn, 16th century. Oil on panel, 63.5 x 46.5 cm. Present whereabouts unknown

  • fig. b The Master of the Lille Adoration (formerly called Dirck Jacobsz Vellert) (?), Two Wings of a Triptych with The Holy Kinship, c. 1520-30. Oil on panel, 86.5 x 31.5 cm (wings). Herdingen, Fürstenberg collection

Footnotes

  • 1Copy RKD.
  • 2Illustrated in ENP, XII, 1975, nos. 139-40, pls. 68-69.
  • 3Baldass 1922, pp. 163-65; Friedländer XII, 1935, p. 49; ENP XII, 1975, p. 30; Konowitz 1995, p. 4.
  • 4Vuijk 1946; the Herdingen panels are probably sawn down at the top.
  • 5Lammertse in Rotterdam 1994, p. 302, note 7, pointed out that the Herdingen wings are probably original and that the Kremsmünster panel is a copy.
  • 6Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, nos. 139-40, pls. 68-69; see Lammertse in Rotterdam 1994, pp. 298-302, no. 67.