The Virgin and Child enthroned, with Sts Jerome and John the Baptist and a kneeling Carthusian monk

The support consists of two vertically grained oak planks (38.2 cm and 26 cm), 0.4-0.9 cm thick. The panel is bevelled on all sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1484. The panel could have been ready for use by 1495, but a date in or after 1509 is more likely. The unpainted edges (1-1.3 cm) and the presence of a barbe indicate that the panel was painted in the frame (painted surface: 73.5 x 62.2 cm). The white ground is visible at the edges. An underdrawing in a dry medium was detected with infrared reflectography. Parts of the underdrawing are also visible to the naked eye in the lips of the Virgin and the hands of the monk. The paint layers were applied thickly and the glazed areas are therefore opaque. The Virgin’s halo was probably painted with lead-tin yellow, and the shadows in John the Baptist’s robe with black. The painted brocade pattern on the Virgin’s robe follows the folds in the fabric. There are 'pentimenti' in her face, the Child’s right leg, John the Baptist’s right hand and the monk’s right sleeve.

Good. The flesh colours and lighter areas have a strong craquelure pattern as well as minor abrasion. There is raised paint along the grain in the blue of the Virgin’s robe. The red and green glazes have discoloured somewhat, and the varnish has yellowed.

…; collection Stephen Gooden, London, by 1892;¹¹London 1892, no. 49. …; collection Cornelis Hoogendijk (1866-1911), The Hague, before 1902;²²Henkels 1993, pp. 161-62. from whom on loan to the museum (inv. no. SK-C-871), 1907-11; donated to the museum from Hoogendijk’s estate, 1912; on loan to the Mauritshuis, The Hague, 1948-97; on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, since 2003

ObjectNumber: SK-A-2569

Credit line: Gift of the heirs of C. Hoogendijk, The Hague

The Virgin is enthroned beneath a canopy on the left. The Christ Child on her lap is leafing through a book with his right hand while reaching out with his other hand, in which he has a rosary, towards the donor, a Carthusian monk, who is kneeling in prayer and being presented to the Virgin and Child by John the Baptist accompanied by the Lamb of God (John 1:29). In the centre St Jerome stands in front of a window with a view of a building, possibly a monastery. Standing in the right background is a figure in an enclosed garden, which is a symbol of chastity and Mary’s virginity.⁵⁵Falkenburg 1994, p. 10.

The Carthusian order combines communal life within a monastery with the solitary life of a hermit.⁶⁶On the Carthusians see Gaens/De Grauwe 2006. Carthusian spirituality, which is directed towards the inner world and is marked by silence and solitude, is reflected in the iconography of this painting. John the Baptist lived as a hermit in the desert, as did St Jerome, who followed the life of an ascetic.⁷⁷For both saints see, respectively, Kirschbaum VII, 1974, cols. 164-90, and Kirschbaum VI, 1974, cols. 519-29. There is a related iconography in the Altarpiece with St Anne, the Virgin and the Christ Child by the Master of Frankfurt and the Master of Delft, which originally came from a Carthusian monastery outside Delft.⁸⁸Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig Museum; illustrated in ENP X, 1973, no. 63, pls. 48-49. The left inner wing shows John the Baptist presenting the donor Dirk van Beesd and his four sons, one of whom, also called Dirk, was a Carthusian. A penitent St Jerome is seen on the outer wings, half-naked in the desert, with a crucifix and beating his breast with a stone. When acting as a patron saint, however, St Jerome was usually depicted as a father of the church wearing cardinal’s robes.⁹⁹Hall 1974, pp. 168-69. In the Amsterdam painting Provoost opted for a rather unusual combination of the two types. The saint is holding a crucifix in his left hand and holds the stone by his chest with his right hand. Instead of the more common red cloak he has a blue cappa.¹⁰¹⁰One well-known example of such a blue cloak is found in Raphael’s Madonna of Foligno (Vatican, Pinacoteca). For the iconography of ceremonial cloaks see Beck 1905, p. 284; Nainfa 1909, pp. 90-100; Hall 1968, p. 15.

The panel was attributed to Jan Provoost in 1902 by Hulin de Loo. Both he and Friedländer cited parallels with Provoost’s Adoration of the Magi in Berlin as regards the Virgin and the tall figures with elongated heads that heighten the vertical effect of the panel.¹¹¹¹Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie; illustrated in ENP IXb, 1973, no. 144, pl. 166. Both authors also drew attention to Provoost’s love of gardens with flowerbeds, hedgerows and fencing, as in the background of the Amsterdam painting.¹²¹²Hulin de Loo 1902, pp. 19-20; Friedländer IX, 1931, pp. 88-89. However, Spronk pointed out that the underdrawing was made in a way that does not match Provoost’s method. This is insufficient reason to reject the attribution, but it does make it a little shaky.¹³¹³Spronk 1993, p. 151.

The composition with the Virgin and Child on the left of the scene is unusual. It is probably based in part on the exterior of Gerard David’s Triptych with the Baptism of Christ with the Virgin and Child on the left wing. The right wing shows Magdalena Cordier, Jan de Trompes’s second wife, and her daughter being presented by Mary Magdalen (fig. a). Since those paintings extend over the outsides of two wings, David was forced to move the Virgin and Child from the centre of the composition. Their poses and gestures are remarkably similar to those in the Amsterdam panel. The wings of the triptych were probably executed in 1507 or 1508, which provides a possible terminus post quem for the painting attributed to Jan Provoost. This is reasonably close to Friedländer’s suggested date of c. 1505 and the results of the dendrochronology.¹⁴¹⁴Spronk 1993, pp. 136-37, 139-40; ENP IXb, 1973, p. 116, no. 178.

(V. Hoogland)

Hulin de Loo 1902, pp. 19-20 (as Provoost); Friedländer IX, 1931, pp. 89, 150, no. 178 (as Provoost); ENP IXb, 1973, pp. 89, 116, no. 178 (as Provoost); Spronk 1993, pp. 133-51; Zuidema 2004, p. 268 (as Provoost); Van Wegen 2005, pp. 38-39

1907, p. 398, no. 1923a; 1934, p. 230, no. 1923a; 1976, p. 457, no. A 2569

V. Hoogland, 2010, 'attributed to Jan Provoost, The Virgin and Child enthroned, with Sts Jerome and John the Baptist and a kneeling Carthusian monk, Bruges, c. 1510', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.7854