The Mass of St Gregory

The original construction of this painting with integral frame is almost intact. The frame is mounted on the panel with dowels. The support consists of two vertically grained oak planks (30.9 and 31.1 cm), which have been glued together with butt joints. Underneath the applied frame there is unprimed and unpainted wood (approx. 3.5 cm thick) with some holes for the wooden dowels some of which are still in place. Other holes have old metal pins, and some modern screws have been used to reinforce the original construction. The latter was most likely carried out when the horizontal upper and lower ledges of the frame were replaced. A barbe surrounds the painted surface (59 x 53 cm). Visible in raking light, there is a canvas patch under the paint layers which equalises and stabilises a dent in the support. The ground layer is off-white. An underdrawing is not visible with the naked eye. The paint was built up carefully, with the main figures reserved. A lot of mordant gilding was used in the clothes, the’arma Christi’, the background and elsewhere. On top of the gilding a drawing in black paint was used to indicate details and shadows.

Fair. The paint layers are abraded and there are many old discoloured retouchings. There is cupped paint throughout, and some loose paint as well. There are remnants of an old yellowed varnish under the slightly discoloured more recent varnish.

The panel consists of two planks with a shallow, engaged moulding with a tenia, a quirk, a bead, a fillet followed by a second bead (fig. b), connected to the panel with dowels. The painting stops with a barbe at the sight edge of the frame indicating the originality of this construction. The top and bottom rails have been replaced, but the side members are still original. The mouldings are painted black.

…; ? the Brigittine convent Mariënwater, Koudewater, near ’s-Hertogenbosch, before 1713;¹¹Inventory NMGK; Kruijsen 2002, p. 223. transferred to the Brigittine convent Maria Refugie, Uden, 1713;²²Inventory NMGK; Kruijsen 2002, p. 223. from which institution, fl. 2,000, as Anonymous, early 16th century, with other objects, to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. no. 1221), 1875; transferred to the museum, 1916; on loan to the Museum voor Religieuze Kunst, Uden, since December 1973

ObjectNumber: SK-A-2800

This is a depiction of the vision vouchsafed to Pope Gregory I (? 540-604). Christ appeared to the church father while he was celebrating Mass in Santa Croce in Rome. St Gregory, assisted by two deacons, is kneeling at the altar, behind which Christ appears as the Man of Sorrows, standing in a tomb and surrounded by the ‘arma Christi’, the instruments of his Passion. The other church fathers, Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine, are gathered around the altar.³³See Kirschbaum II, 1970, cols. 201-02; Koldeweij in ’s-Hertogenbosch 1990, p. 160. Kneeling in the left and right foreground are the donors: a Brigittine monk in a brown habit with a white cross with red dots on his sleeve, and two Brigittine nuns in brown habits with headbands speckled with red spots (of blood) around their heads. The painting, which probably comes from the Brigittine convent of Mariënwater in Koudewater, near ’s-Hertogenbosch, is on loan from the Rijksmuseum to the Museum voor Religieuze Kunst, which is housed in the Brigittine convent of Maria Refugie in Uden. The nuns in that convent still wear the same dress as in the panel.⁴⁴On the nunneries see Peijnenburg 1986, and on the Brigittines, Koldeweij in ’s-Hertogenbosch 1990, p. 160. The painting probably had a devotional function in one of the nuns’ cells.⁵⁵See the other paintings from Mariënwater: SK-A-4650, and the copy after Jheronimus Bosch, SK-A-4252.

The Mass of St Gregory is usually depicted in a church in early Netherlandish and German painting, as in the case of the left wing of the Utrecht ‘Crucifixion’ triptych of c. 1460 (SK-A-1408).⁶⁶For the subject see Westfehling 1982. The Rijksmuseum painting seems to be broadly based on the engraving of the same subject by Israhel van Meckenem (fig. a), which also includes the deacons and the church fathers. St Gregory’s pose and the frontal Christ are related to the same figures in Jheronimus Bosch’s depiction of the subject on the outer wings of the ‘Triptych with the adoration of Magi’ in the Prado in Madrid.⁷⁷Illustrated in ENP V, 1972, no. 68, pl. 47.

The style and manner of painting, with an abundant use of gilding, is rather primitive and provincial. The painting is probably part of a local Brabant output of which few other works have survived. It may even have been painted in the convent itself. The lack of specific stylistic clues and dendrochronological findings makes it difficult to date. It may have been painted in the last decades of the 15th century or beginning of the 16th century. What is remarkable is that it still has its original frame, which is attached to the panel. There must once have been a similar frame around the ‘Ecce homo’ (SK-A-4650), which also came from the Mariënwater Convent.
JPFK

Liebergen in Uden 1986, p. 120, no. 94; Koldeweij in ’s-Hertogenbosch 1990, pp. 160-61, no. 95

1914, p. 486, no. 342c; 1976, p. 693, no. A 2800 (as second half 15th century)

J.P. Filedt Kok, 2010, 'anonymous, The Mass of St Gregory, Brabant, c. 1500', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.9385