Pseudo Jan Wellens de Cock (attributed to)
Leiden, Antwerp, c. 1525
oil on panel
support: height 50 cm (centre panel) × width 33.5 cm (centre panel) × height 42 cm (left wing) × width 16.8 cm (left wing) × height 42 cm (right wing) × width 16.5 cm (right wing)
painted surface: height 37 cm (centre panel) × width 25.5 cm (centre panel) × height 32.5 cm (left wing) × width 10 cm (left wing) × height 31.8 cm (right wing) × width 9.7 cm (right wing)
The support of the centre panel and its frame consists of two vertically grained oak planks (20.2 and 13.2 cm). The panel itself is approx. 0.5 cm thick and the frame approx. 3.8 cm thick. The wings and their frames were probably carved from single vertically grained oak planks (16.8 and 16.5 cm respectively) with a thickness of approx. 2.3 cm for the frames, and approx. 0.5 cm for the painted panels. The white ground must have been applied to the frame and the panels at the same time. The paint layer is rather thin, allowing the ground to show through. The painted surface of the middle panel measures 36.3 x 30.1 cm, that of the left wing 32 x 10 cm, and that of the right wing 31.8 x 9.7 cm. The total painted surface of the outer wings is 37.6 x 30.1 cm. Infrared reflectography revealed a rapid, sketchy underdrawing on all panels of the triptych which was executed with a dry material, probably black chalk (fig. a, fig. b). The main elements of the composition were indicated with very loose lines which are occasionally angular in the drapery folds. The lines of the parallel hatchings used to denote the shaded passages are sometimes quite widely spaced. The hatchings mark broad areas of shadow in the clothing, such as that of St James on the right wing and of St Christopher on the outer wings, and of the soldier seated on the ground in the centre panel. There is barely any underdrawing visible in the middleground, whereas there is again a very rapid and spontaneous drawing in the landscapes. The parallel hatchings beneath the landscape on the outer wings take the form of loose, rounded zigzag shapes. There are sketchy framing lines around the painted surface of the outer wings which overlap the paint layer by several millimetres. The figures were reserved. The drawn design was followed quite closely in the paint. There are a few modifications, but none of them affect the composition as such. The paint was applied in thin layers to create a smooth surface in which the foreground figures were carefully elaborated. The decoration of the costumes of the principal figures is highly detailed. Highlights were used in the details and the trees, and mordant gilding for the brocade and the halo. The army of soldiers in the centre panel and the horde of devils on the outer wings were sketchily laid down with brown paint, after which the horsemen were picked out with light highlights. The artist’s fingerprints are visible in the plume of smoke rising from the massed devils.
Fair. The paint layer on the left plank of the centre panel is less well preserved than that of the other panels. The painting is quite abraded and has a pronounced craquelure pattern.
The paintings of the inner triptych are mounted in integral moulding frames. A cross-section of the profile on the central frame shows a tenia, a bead, a fillet, and originally a cove and a jump (the jump was rounded off when the gilding was removed) (fig. e). A cross-section of the profile of the frames surrounding the wings shows a tenia and a reverse ogee (![fig. f][fig. f]). Whereas the sills at the bottom of the wings have a wide bevelled sight edge (![fig. g][fig. g]), the central frame has a simple, square sill (fig. h). The mouldings have been completely stripped. There is a broad, unpainted margin around the panels of the outer wings where there were originally engaged mouldings. There are three dowels in the integral sill of the central frame which may be the remains of an original forward extension. This would explain why the frames surrounding the wings are shorter than the central frame.
…; sale, Frédéric Spitzer (1815-90, Paris), Paris (P. Chevallier), 17 April 1893 sqq., no. 3314, as German school, frs. 2,050, to the dealer Durand-Ruel, Paris;1 from whom, fl. 1,033, to the museum, July 1893; on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 2004-10
Object number: SK-A-1598
Copyright: Public domain
Pseudo Jan Wellens de Cock (active in Antwerp c. 1520-40)
Several Antwerp archives mention a ‘Jan de Cock, painter’, who according to Van den Branden is identical with Jan Wellens de Cock (Antwerp c. 1470 - Antwerp 1521) recorded in the magistrates’ rolls in 1492. In August 1502 he married Clara van Beeringen, and two of their children were probably the landscape painter Matthijs Cock (c. 1510-before 1548) and the engraver and print publisher Hieronymus Cock (1518-70). In 1502 he was also admitted as an ‘assistant’ to the Antwerp Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe-Lof fraternity, for which he repaired the brothers’ works of art in the cathedral and made woodcuts. The ledgers of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke record two pupils of his in 1507 and 1516, one ‘Loduwyck’ and Wouter Key, none of whose works is known today. De Cock was clearly a respected artist, for he and Joos van Cleve were deans of the Antwerp guild in 1520. It can be deduced from the archives that he died in 1521.
On the basis of stylistic similarities to paintings from the school of Cornelis Engebrechtsz, Friedländer suggested that Jan de Cock may have come from Leiden, and was the ‘Jan van Leyen’ who enrolled as a free master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke in 1503. However, nothing further is known about this Jan van Leyen, so this identification with Jan de Cock is purely hypothetical.
Although there is not a single signed work by Jan Wellens de Cock known today, Friedländer gave him a few small panels with saints and religious subjects. Friedländer’s point of departure was an unsigned panel of St Christopher, (SK-A-1598, fig. c), for a later 17th-century print after it has the inscription ‘Pictum J. Kock’.2 One feature of the works that Friedländer grouped around it, including the small Crucifixion triptych in the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-1598), are the detailed landscape settings for the figures, many of them saints. The way in which the landscape is shaped by steep crags, and the graceful forms of the figures, correspond not only to the work of the Antwerp Mannerists but also to the Leiden paintings of the same period. As Gibson and others have demonstrated, the similarities to works by presumed pupils of Cornelis Engelbrechtsz are striking. In addition, most of the attributed panels seem datable to the 1520s, which virtually demolishes Friedländer’s identification with Jan Wellens de Cock of Antwerp, who died in 1521.
Many of the works that Friedländer attributed to De Cock have therefore gradually been reassigned, by Beets, Hoogewerff and others, to a few of Engebrechtsz’s pupils, such as his sons Cornelis Cornelisz named Kunst (1493-1544) and Lucas Cornelisz named De Cock (1495-?), who are mentioned by Van Mander. Baldass, on the other hand, divided the attributions over two hands: the Master of the Vienna Dismissal of Hagar, and Jan de Cock. Gibson then attributed the works that Baldass had given to Jan de Cock to the Master of the Vienna Lamentation, and regarded both of these anonymous masters as pupils and assistants of Cornelis Engebrechtsz, possibly his sons. It is clear from this art-historical discussion that the paintings attributed to Jan de Cock over the years were in fact executed by different hands, but probably not by Jan de Cock himself. There is no certainty that they originated in either Antwerp or Leiden, and since none of those discussed in this catalogue, which were very probably made in Leiden, can be associated with the Antwerp painter Jan de Cock, they are here catalogued under the ad hoc name of Pseudo Jan Wellens de Cock.
MB/JPFK
References
Rombouts/Van Lerius I, 1864, pp. 58, 65, 87, 94; Van den Branden 1883, pp. 289-90; Thieme/Becker VII, 1912, p. 144; Baldass 1937; Friedländer XI, 1933, pp. 59-72; Beets 1936; Hoogewerff III, 1939, pp. 321-87; Gibson 1969a, pp. 161-200, 250-64; ENP XI, 1973, pp. 37-43; Filedt Kok in Amsterdam 1986a, p. 154; Riggs in Turner 1996, VII, p. 497; Romer in Saur XX, 1998, pp. 70-71; Van der Stock 1998, pp. 115, 119, 121, 207, 228, 258-59, 283; Born in Antwerp 2006, pp. 11-12; Yao-Fen You in Antwerp 2006, p. 224
This triptych with Mount Calvary and donors is a rare example of a small altarpiece for private devotion from the first half of the 16th century that is still in its original state. Unlike many others of the period, the painted panels and the original, although leached frame still form a single unit. When the triptych is opened, the centre panel shows Calvary with Christ on the cross flanked by the two crucified thieves (Matthew 27:33-56; Mark 15:22-41; Luke 23:33-49; John 19:17-37). The scene contains several motifs not described in the Bible, such as the man drawing a knife during an argument among the soldiers throwing dice for Christ’s cloak, and the swooning Virgin being supported by John and Mary Magdalen.3 The landscape extends onto the wings, where the kneeling donors are accompanied by their patron saints: St Peter with the man and St James the Greater with the woman. Two angels in the sky above them carry as yet unidentified coats of arms.
When the triptych is closed the outer wings show a unified scene of St Christopher with the Christ Child in his arms and mounted on a horse. Behind them a horde of devils and demons are fleeing in fright from St Christopher and the Child. A mounted St Christopher is a variant of the more traditional scene of the saint wading across a river with the Christ Child on his shoulders. In northern Europe this image merged with that of the Christian knight in the late 15th century.4 According to Beitz, the altered iconography of St Christopher was partly due to Erasmus’s criticism of the veneration of the saint in his Enchiridion militis Christiani of 1503.5
Examination with infrared reflectography revealed an extensive underdrawing, probably in a dry medium, under all the parts of the triptych (fig. a, fig. b). The lively nature of the scene in the underdrawing has been toned down here and there in the painted surface. For instance, the contorted pose of the thief on Christ’s left was even more complex in the underdrawing, with his left arm clamped around the arm of the cross, while his dangling right hand originally pointed stiffly upwards. In addition, the underdrawn fluttering ribbons around the coats of arms were not painted in, nor was the feathered plumage on St Christopher’s horse on the outside of the wings.
There has been a lot of speculation about the maker of this painstakingly executed work. On the evidence of a print after a panel with St Christopher (fig. c) stating that it was painted by J. Cock, Friedländer attributed several works, including the Rijksmuseum triptych, to Jan Wellens de Cock.6 On the basis of stylistic similarities to Leiden paintings from the early decades of the 16th century, the triptych was also attributed to Lucas Cornelisz named De Cock, one of Engebrechtsz’s sons.7 Gibson, too, believed that the paintings attributed to Jan Wellens de Cock originated in the studio or immediate circle of Engebrechtsz. In the subdivision he made within this group, the Amsterdam triptych was assigned to the Master of the Vienna Lamentation.8 However, its figures are more closely related to those in the paintings that are attributed to the Master of the Vienna Dismissal of Hagar.9 There are also stylistic similarities to The Carrying of the Cross in New Haven (fig. d), to the background figures in The Calvary (SK-A-4921), and to the landscape in a Triptych with the Crucifixion from Engebrechtsz’s workshop.10 Gibson suggested that the landscape in the latter triptych was by an assistant of Cornelis Engebrechtsz’s who came from Antwerp, which could explain the similarities in style between Antwerp and Leiden.11 The stylistic relationship with the later work of Cornelis Engebrechtsz makes it likely that the paintings mentioned above were executed in the 1520s, but there is no solid evidence to support this. Nor could the as yet unidentified coats of arms in the Amsterdam triptych help localise the donors.
MB
Dülberg 1899a, p. 76 (as Cornelis Engelbrechtsz); Friedländer 1915, p. 88 (as Jan de Cock); Friedländer 1918, pp. 70-71 (as Jan de Cock); Wescher 1925, pp. 147-50 (as Jan de Cock); Friedländer XI, 1933, pp. 63, 126, no. 112 (as Jan de Cock); Beets 1936, pp. 58-60 (as attributed to Lucas Cornelisz named De Cock); Baldass 1937, pp. 125-27 (as Jan de Cock); Hoogewerff III, 1939, pp. 374-77 (as Lucas Cornelisz named De Cock); Gibson 1969a, pp. 188-90, 195-96, 255-56, no. 65 (as Master of the Vienna Lamentation); ENP XI, 1973, pp. 39, 78, no. 112 (as Jan de Cock); Filedt Kok 1996, p. 351; Yao-Fen You in Antwerp 2005, pp. 219-21, no. 93
1903, p. 6, no. 47 (as Dutch school, beginning of the 16th century); 1934, p. 7, no. 47 (as Dutch school, beginning of the 16th century); 1960, p. 72, no. 699 B1 (as Jan Wellens de Cock); 1976, p. 170, no. A 1598 (as attributed to Jan Wellens de Cock)
M. Balm, 2010, 'attributed to Pseudo Jan Wellens de Cock, Triptych with the Crucifixion (centre panel), St Peter and a Male Donor (inner left wing), St James and a Female Donor (inner right wing), St Christopher and the Christ Child on the Road of Life (outer wings), Leiden, c. 1525', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8148
(accessed 16 April 2024 08:30:38).fig. a Detail of the infrared reflectogram assembly of SK-A-1598, showing the group at lower left on the centre panel (© Stichting RKD)
fig. b Detail of the infrared reflectogram assembly of SK-A-1598, showing the crucified thief on the right (© Stichting RKD)
fig. e Rendering of the profile of the vertical members of the central frame (width 41 mm)
fig. h Rendering of the profile of the bottom member of the central frame (width 32 mm)
fig. c Pseudo Jan Wellens de Cock, 'St Christopher with the Christ Child', c. 1520-30. Oil on panel, 35.7 x 45.9 cm. Private collection
fig. a Detail of the infrared reflectogram assembly of SK-A-1598, showing the group at lower left on the centre panel (© Stichting RKD)
fig. b Detail of the infrared reflectogram assembly of SK-A-1598, showing the crucified thief on the right (© Stichting RKD)
fig. c Pseudo Jan Wellens de Cock, 'St Christopher with the Christ Child', c. 1520-30. Oil on panel, 35.7 x 45.9 cm. Private collection (© Stichting RKD)
fig. d Pseudo Jan Wellens de Cock, 'The carrying of the cross', c. 1520-30. Oil on panel, 30 x 42.5 cm. New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery