Triptych with the Adoration of the Magi (centre panel), the Donor and his Six Sons with St Jerome (inner left wing), the Donor’s Wife and her Seven Daughters with St Catherine of Alexandria (inner right wing), St Christopher (outer left wing) and St Antony Abbot (outer right wing)

The support of the centre panel consists of two vertically grained oak planks (27 and 28.2 cm), 1.4-1.8 cm thick. The panel is very slightly bevelled on the left, right and bottom edges. Some plane marks are present. The wooden block applied to the middle of the centre panel in order to reinforce the joins is a later addition. Each wing consists of a single vertically grained oak panel. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring of the centre panel was formed in 1476. The panel could have been ready for use by 1487, but a date in or after 1501 is more likely. The white ground on all three panels, which is visible through the paint layers and at the edges, was applied when the panels were framed. The centre panel has unpainted edges of 0.8-1.3 cm on all sides (painted surface: 82.2 x 53.4 cm). There is no barbe. The paint layers extend to the underdrawn outline of the composition (see also SK-A-3480). The underdrawing is visible to the naked eye as well as with infrared reflectography. It consists of contour lines and hatchings in all directions which were probably applied in both a dry and a wet medium. The latter is clearly visible on the outer left wing with St Christopher. The dry medium appears to have been used chiefly to prepare the composition, while the wet one is visible here and there in shaded passages. Interestingly, the outer right wing with St Antony appears to have been designed with the dry medium alone. The painting technique can be characterised as linear and precise. The contour lines were painted in a semi-transparent dark brown, which outline the figures and especially the fingers and hands. The paint layers were applied rather thickly. It is clear to the unaided eye that the small female donor at the back on the inner right wing was added later. This observation was confirmed by infrared reflectography. However, the way in which this figure’s face is painted with brushstrokes of a linear nature and with a dark outline makes it clear that this is not a later overpaint but must have been added by the artist himself.

Van Oosterwijk in Groningen-Oostzaan 2003, pp. 43-47, no. 3

Good. The centre panel has a slightly convex deformation. Both wings have a vertical crack in the centre, possibly the result of the framing (which is too narrow for the panels). The varnish is discoloured.

…; Franciscan convent near Messiera , 1792;¹¹Hinterding/Horsch 1989, p. 59, no. 15 …; Van Parijs;²²According to the dealer L.J. Nieuwenhuys; see Hinterding/Horsch 1989, p. 59, no. 15 …; purchased from the dealer L.J. Nieuwenhuys, Brussels, by Willem II (1792-1849), King of the Netherlands, Brussels, as Gossaert, with 22 other ‘tableaux gottiques’, probably April 1823;³³Hinterding/Horsch 1989, pp. 9, 59, no. 15 his sale, The Hague (De Vries, Roos, Brondgeest), 18 August 1850, no. 15, as ‘Jean Memling’, unsold; from his estate, fl. 7,700, to Frederik (1797-1881), Prince of The Netherlands, 14 October 1850;⁴⁴Hinterding/Horsch 1989, pp. 43, 59, no. 15 his daughter, Marie (1841-1910), Fürstin zu Wied, Princess of the Netherlands, Neuwied, 1883; her sale et al., London (Sotheby’s), 5 July 1967, no. 11, £ 37,000 to the dealer E.J.  Speelman;⁵⁵Copy RKD…; on loan to the museum from J. William Middendorf II (1924-), Washington and The Hague, 1973-78; from whom, fl. 1,145,833, to the museum, with support from the Prins Bernard Fonds, the Vereniging Rembrandt and Mr and Mrs J. William Middendorf II, 1978; on loan to the Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 2004-10

ObjectNumber: SK-A-4706

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt and Mr and Mrs Middendorf, Washington

The centre panel of this triptych of 1517 shows the adoration of the Magi (Matthew 2:11). The Virgin is seated in the centre of the scene with the Christ Child on her lap. The oldest king is kissing Christ’s right hand, while the younger one, depicted in profile, is proffering a goblet of myrrh, which is an allusion to Christ’s divinity. Both motifs are found in adorations by Geertgen tot Sint Jans,⁸⁸SK-A-2150, and the painting in Prague, National Gallery; illustrated in ENP V, 1969, no. 4, pls. 4-6. and Jacob Cornelisz used them in one version of the woodcut series of The Life of the Virgin of 1507 (fig. a).⁹⁹Kloek in Van Os ‘et al’. 2000, p. 111, no. 33. With thanks to Wouter Kloek.

On the left wing are the donor with his six sons and Jerome, his patron saint. One of the boys is wearing a white shroud, signifying that he had died before the painting was made. The man’s wife is depicted on the right wing with St Catherine of Alexandria and seven daughters, the smallest of whom, on the left, is also wearing a shroud. At the tops of the wings are the donors’ coats of arms. Painted in grisaille on the outer wings are St Christopher on the left and St Antony Abbot on the right, and two more coats of arms.

Several attempts have been made to identify the donors on the wings. Back in 1926 Sterck suspected that they were members of the Heereman family. He linked the woman’s coat of arms to the Ramp family, which is supported by the research presented below.¹⁰¹⁰Sterck 1926, p. 255. In 1993, Dudok van Heel again associated the arms with the old Amsterdam family of Heereman.¹¹¹¹Dudok van Heel 1993, p. 55. He identified the quarterings as (1) Heereman, (2) Van Hollen, (3) Van Zeller and (4) Baerland, and the woman’s arms of alliance on the right wing as (1) Heereman and (2) unknown. However, since the coats proved to be later overpaints, possibly dating from the 18th century, Dudok van Heel suggested in 1996 on the basis of genealogical research that the triptych had been made for the Amsterdam apothecary Claes Bouwesz Cat (?-after 1536) and his second wife Volckgen Jansdr (before 1489-1551).¹²¹²Dudok van Heel 1996, pp. 199-223. Although the visible coats of arms are indeed later overpaints, examination with infrared reflectography clearly shows that the division of the shields and devices in the fields of the woman’s arms had already been planned in the underdrawing stage, although there it was smaller and hung vertically rather than diagonally (fig. b).¹³¹³The chevron in the arms of alliance, which is the device of the Heereman family, and the cogwheel with three stars on the unidentified coat (see below), were drawn with rapid lines that are stylistically consistent with the remainder of the underdrawing on the rest of this wing. Sterck 1926, p. 255, suspected that the field on the right referred to the Ramp family. One probable later owner of the triptych, Frederik Jacob Heereman van Zuydtwijck, was a son of Anna Ramp. The later overpaint made it a little larger to match the man’s quartered arms, which were painted at the same time. The man’s original coat, which can be seen beneath the surface of the paint (fig. c), probably consists only of the Heereman arms, although the X-radiographs are a little unclear on this point. Although it proved impossible to detect an underdrawing of the man’s coat of arms, and since X-radiographs failed to provide any additional information, the underdrawing of the woman’s arms makes it clear that the couple must indeed be members of the Heereman family.

Although there is no couple in the family tree for this period who are known for certain to have had six sons and seven daughters, there is a possibility that the man is Peter Ghijsbertsz Heereman (May 1469 - between February 1539/1541) and the woman his first wife, whose name is not known.¹⁴¹⁴With thanks to S.A.C. Dudok van Heel. See Dudok van Heel 1993, p. 61, IIIb. The coats of arms on the outer wings, which are original and not overpainted, are those of the Heereman family on the left wing and an unidentified mark on the right wing.

The overpainting of the arms on the fronts of the wings may have been ordered by Frederik Jacob Heereman van Zuydtwijck (1663-1745), who might have had his family portraits enhanced in an attempt to gain entry to the knightage of the province of Gelderland. The male coat of arms on the triptych was augmented with three quarterings belonging to Gelderland families, possibly as a result of Frederik’s marriage to Elisabeth Catharina van Scherpenzeel (1674-1720), who came from an old family of Gelderland nobility. He was buried in the Church of the Clarissenkerk (Church of the Poor Clares) in Roermond in 1745, and there is a suspicion that the triptych was taken to Italy from a church or monastery in Roermond at the end of the 17th or beginning of the 18th century, for in 1792 it was in a Franciscan friary near Messiera.

There may be some uncertainty about the identity of the donors, but there is none at all about the attribution to Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen. Stylistically, there are many points of correspondence with other works that are fairly securely attributed to him, such as the St Jerome Altarpiece of 1511 in Vienna,¹⁵¹⁵Kunsthistorisches Museum; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 244, pls. 134, 135. and the epitaph with The Nativity of 1512.¹⁶¹⁶Naples, Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 253, pl. 141. See Carroll 1987, p. 125. Various aspects of the technique are also his, such as the almost hatched manner of painting with a small, stiff brush and thick, sturdy paint. He also enclosed almost all of the contours with dark brown paint, and the palette is fairly turbid. The underdrawing, too, corresponds to many of the works by Jacob Cornelisz examined with infrared reflectography, and betrays a crabbed hand of the kind described by Jacobowitz and Stepanek in connection with his woodcuts as ‘gnarled and frequently disorganised’.¹⁷¹⁷Jacobowitz/Stepanek 1983, p. 266. He consistently used more hatching in the underdrawing than seems necessary for preparing the specific passage.

The architecture on the wings does not match up with that of the centre panel, and there are also differences in colour between them, as well as physical discrepancies.¹⁸¹⁸See Technical notes. It is therefore not inconceivable that the wings were attached to the centre panel later, although the technical and stylistic unity of the wings and the central panel, as well as the comparable underdrawings, indicate that the wings are autograph as well, and cannot have been attached to the centre panel long after 1517.

There are three other versions of the centre panel, dated 1520, 1536 and 1537, the first of which was regarded as autograph by Friedländer.¹⁹¹⁹Respectively sale, London (Christie’s), 10 July 2002, no. 109; present whereabouts unknown (photo RMA); Cambridge (England), Fitzwilliam Museum (photo RMA).

(Daantje Meuwissen)

Passavant 1841, p. 46 (as Lucas van Leyden); Scheibler 1882, p. 22; Scheibler 1904, p. 551; Voll 1904, p. 540; Steinbart 1922, pp. 107, 157; Six 1925, p. 35 (as Jan van Hout ?), Six 1926, p. 141 (as Jan van Hout); Sterck 1926, p. 255; Steinbart 1929, p. 234; Kessler 1932, p. 101 (as Jacob Cornelisz or Cornelis Buys I); Friedländer XII, 1935, pp. 103, 104, 212; Hoogewerff III, 1939, p. 120; Amsterdam 1958, p. 99, no. 107; Wegner 1959, p. 8; ENP XII, 1975, pp. 56, 57, 114; Heller 1976, p. 220, no. 276; Carroll 1987, pp. 122-29, with earlier literature; Kloek 1989a, pp. 169-70; Dudok van Heel 1993, p. 55; Dudok van Heel 1996, pp. 199-223; Bangs 1999, p. 119 (as Jacob Cornelisz and Simon Claasz II van Waterlant); Van Bueren 1999, p. 117; Meuwissen in Groningen-Oostzaan 2003, pp. 25, 42-47, no. 3; Meuwissen in Rotterdam 2008a, pp. 201-05, no. 32, with earlier literature

1976, p. 176, no. C 1554; 1992, p. 48, no. A 4706

D. Meuwissen, 2008, 'Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen, Triptych with the Adoration of the Magi (centre panel), the Donor and his Six Sons with St Jerome (inner left wing), the Donor’s Wife and her Seven Daughters with St Catherine of Alexandria (inner right wing), St Christopher (outer left wing) and St Antony Abbot (outer right wing), Amsterdam, 1517', in Cat. 15e en 16e eeuwse Nederlandse Schilderijen, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8175