The Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan

Carved and polychromed. The panel is composed of three planks.

W.T. Kloek et al., Art Before the Iconoclasm: Northern Netherlandish Art 1525-1580, vol. 2, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1986, p. 208

Christ’s hands, John’s right hand with bowl and the part of Christ’s robe carried by the angel are missing.

...; found, with two other panels, on the first attic of the Moreau-organ in the Sint-Janskerk (Grote Kerk), Gouda, by c. 1800;¹¹Note RMA. SAMH, KM 75, Inventory Sint-Janskerk Gouda, c. 1800: drie gebeelthoude schilderijen (three sculpted paintings). by the church wardens, with the other panels (BK-NM-6074 and -6075), fl. 1,000 for all three, to the museum, 1884; on loan to the Stedelijk Museum, Gouda, since 1953

ObjectNumber: BK-NM-6074

Together with the two accompanying panels (BK-NM-6076 and BK-NM-6075), this polychromed relief was found on the first attic of the Moreau-organ in the Sint-Janskerk (Grote Kerk) in Gouda. According to tradition they were once part of an altar in that church.²²Note RMA. If this is accurate, the devastating fire of 1552 in which the most of the church’s interior was destroyed, is a probable terminus post quem for their creation.³³For the fire, see B. van den Berg, De Sint-Janskerk in Gouda_, pp. 75, 181-82. The panels may derive from the new high altar, erected in 1561-63, that was dedicated to St John the Baptist. Alternatively, recent authors have argued the panels could derive from the hexagonal barrel of the church’s sixteenth-century pulpit, which was decorated with five carved and polychromed medallions, one of them representing Pentecost.⁴⁴H. van Dolder-de Wit, De Sint-Janskerk te Gouda: Mensen en monumenten in een oude stadskerk, Utrecht 2013, pp. 121-23. There must have been at least five medallions, since in 1618, a certain Wiertz Claesz receives payment for ‘the painting of a roundel of the old pulpit being the descent of the H. Spirit, eight guilders’ (het schilderen van een ronde van de oude preeckstoel zijnde de seijndinge van den h. geest acht guldens) while a year later, in 1619 he is paid for four more roundels of the pulpit (het schilderen en vergulden van vier ronde borden vande oude predick stoel de somme van vier ende dertich guldens). It is unclear if this is the preeck-stoel (pulpit), which, according to an eye witness testimony, was saved from the fire in 1552,⁵⁵See B. van den Berg, De Sint-Janskerk in Gouda_, p. 181. or a new one that was erected after the disaster.

The scene on this panel depicts the Baptism of Christ. John baptizes Christ by pouring water from the River Jordan over his head with a (missing) bowl. Christ stands with his feet in the river; for the occasion, he has taken off his robe, which is held by the angel beside them. Above his head hovers the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove against a background of clouds from which rays of light burst forth. John the Baptist wears the same green robe with frayed puffed sleeves and the same red cloak as his counterpart in the panel depicting the Adoration (BK-NM-6076), where his presence deviates from the pictorial tradition. The prominence of John the Baptist in two of the three panels can perhaps be explained by the idea that the Sint-Janskerk was dedicated to this ‘forerunner of Christ’, who was also the patron saint of Gouda. However, it has never been conclusively proven that the panels originally belonged to this church.⁶⁶On this subject, see BK-NM-6075, where the local Minderbroederklooster (Convent of the Friars Minor) is suggested as the possible provenance.

The three reliefs have been linked stylistically to the work of Jan Swart van Groningen (c. 1500-in or after 1553), who probably spent some time in Gouda. Although his known work consists only of prints and paintings, Swart has even been named, with some reservation, as the maker of the panels.⁷⁷N. Beets, ‘Zestiende-eeuwsche kunstenaars, I. Jan Swart’, Oud Holland 32 (1914), pp. 1-28, esp. pp. 17-18. The style of the panels may well be reminiscent of Swart, but they more closely resemble the work of Jan van Scorel (1495-1562) and Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574).⁸⁸W. Halsema-Kubes in W.T. Kloek et al., Art Before the Iconoclasm: Northern Netherlandish Art 1525-1580, vol. 2, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1986, p. 209. For example, the figure type of the woman appearing on the panels is closely related to Scorel’s Mary Magdalene in the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-372). Compare, for instance, the hair style with plaits at the side of the head and the stray locks of hair at the temples, in combination with a head-cloth. Furthermore, the Christ Child in the panel with the Adoration (BK-NM-6076) is comparable to the Child in Heemskerck’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt in the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Child in Scorel’s Madonna and Child with Wild Roses in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht.⁹⁹W.T. Kloek et al., Art Before the Iconoclasm: Northern Netherlandish Art 1525-1580, vol. 2, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1986, nos. 69-69a (ills.). Finally, the pose of the figures, who display a bent left or right leg, also occurs in many of Scorel’s and Heemskerck’s paintings. In short, the panels were made by an anonymous woodcarver who was familiar with the work of these early Renaissance painters. He succeeded in allowing the figures to follow, where necessary, the curve of the medallions in a natural way. The muscular putti in the corners have lower bodies that split into acanthus leaves, which then turn into animal heads. They are reminiscent of the marvellous grotesque ornamentation of the carved oak choir screen in the Grote Kerk in Enkhuizen dating from 1542.

The iconographic connection between the scenes depicted on the three remaining panels is difficult to explain. The two scenes from the life of Christ, the Adoration and the Baptism, are suggestive of a longer cycle. This might have been combined with a perhaps equally large series of (Franciscan) saints, of which the third panel seems to be an example (BK-NM-6075).¹⁰¹⁰Written suggestion, Hannes Pütz, 5 June 2004. If indeed the panels were once part of an altarpiece, as tradition would have it, the altarpiece in question was perhaps comparable to Jan Mone’s 1533 Sacraments Retable of alabaster, likewise with a series of relief medallions each incorporated in a square panel, in the Sint-Martinuskerk in Halle (fig. a).¹¹¹¹W. Halsema-Kubes in W.T. Kloek et al., Art Before the Iconoclasm: Northern Netherlandish Art 1525-1580, vol. 2, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1986, p. 209 (ill. 86a). From an iconographical point of view it seems to be less likely they were part of the church’s pulpit, which had only five panels – one of which depicted yet another scene related to the life of Christ (Pentecost). This combination of scenes doesn’t seem to agree with the inclusion of the rather unusual depiction of the Mass of St John of Capistrano. However the pulpit-theory should not be dismissed entirely because, in terms of their shape and size, the panels are very comparable to those of other sixteenth-century hexagonal pulpit barrels.¹²¹²Cf. for instance, the pulpit in the Grote Kerk in Enkhuizen and that in the Grote Kerk in The Hague.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J.H. Molenbroek, Catalogus der tentoonstelling van voor Nederland belangrijke Oudheden en merkwaardigheden, in de Provincie Zuid-Holland voorhanden, of met betrekking tot die die provincie elders bewaard, gehouden te Delft, julij-augustus 1863, exh. cat. Delft 1863, no. 155, J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 53b, with earlier literature; W. Halsema-Kubes in W.T. Kloek et al., Art Before the Iconoclasm: Northern Netherlandish Art 1525-1580, vol. 1, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1986, pp. 55-56; H. van Dolder-de Wit, De Sint-Janskerk te Gouda: Mensen en monumenten in een oude stadskerk, Utrecht 2013, pp. 121-23; Halsema-Kubes in W.T. Kloek et al., Art Before the Iconoclasm: Northern Netherlandish Art 1525-1580, vol. 2, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1986, no. 86.2

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, The Baptism of Christ in the River Jordan, Gouda, c. 1535 - c. 1565', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24325