Object data
oil on panel
support: height 73 cm × width 54.5 cm
Jheronimus Bosch (copy after)
Ecce homo
c. 1530 - c. 1550
Technical notes
The support, which is 0.8 cm thick, consists of two vertically grained oak planks (27 and 27.5 cm), which are butt-joined with a spline. The panel is not bevelled and may have been trimmed slightly along the edges. Regularly spaced, small holes are visible along the edges on the reverse of the support. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1511. The panel could have been ready for use by 1522, but a date in or after 1536 is more likely. At the left and right-hand side of the panel unpainted and ungrounded edges with traces of a barb were found. The white ground was applied up to the edges; it is possible that unpainted edges were removed by trimming the panel on all sides. It is not possible to distinguish an underdrawing under the white ground with the naked eye. The paint layers were built up carefully with the use of reserves, highlights and glazes.
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared reflectography: BRCP, 23 October 2013
- infrared photography: BRCP, 23 October 2013
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 25 May 2000
- condition report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 29 August 2007
Literature scientific examination and reports
Hoogstede et al. 2016, pp. 446-49, no. S 2
Condition
Fair. There are several cracks at the top and bottom of both planks. The painting is locally abraded and has small areas of damage and discoloured retouchings throughout. The varnish is also discoloured.
Provenance
...; ? the Brigittine convent Mariënwater, Koudewater, near ’s-Hertogenbosch, before 1713;1 transferred to the Brigittine convent Maria Refugie, Uden, 1713;2 whence, fl. 2,000, as Anonymous, early 16th century, with other objects, to the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague (inv. no. 1219), 1875; transferred to the museum, c. 1912; on loan to the Museum voor Religieuze Kunst, Uden, since 1973
Object number: SK-A-4252
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Jheronimus Bosch (’s-Hertogenbosch c. 1450 - ’s-Hertogenbosch 1516), copy after
Jheronimus Bosch came from a prodigiously artistic family. His great-grandfather, Thomas van Aken, his grandfather Jan and his father Antonius were all painters. His grandfather left Aachen for Nijmegen and then moved to ’s-Hertogenbosch, where he is first documented in 1427. Four of his sons became painters as well. The youngest, Antonius, married Aleid van der Mynnen, and their three sons, Goessen, Jheronimus and Jan all once again followed their father’s profession.
Bosch is mentioned – usually with just his forename Jheronimus or Jeroen – in a number of documents drawn up in ’s-Hertogenbosch between 1474 and 1516. In the earliest of them, dated 5 April 1474, he acted together with his father and brothers as witnesses for his sister Katherijn. The artist used the toponym Bosch to sign a few of his works ‘Jheronimus Bosch’. He probably trained in his father’s workshop.
Between July 1477 and June 1481, Bosch married Aleid van der Meervenne, who was born into quite a well-to-do family in Oirschot, a village south of ’s-Hertogenbosch. In the city they moved into her house, ‘Inden Salvator’ (In the Saviour), but it is not known precisely when. Bosch became prosperous, thanks to his wife, and began moving in the city’s higher social circles, which included the influential Brotherhood of Our Lady. He became an ordinary member in 1486-87, and was elected a sworn brother the following year, 1487-88. That Jheronimus Bosch was quite well off can be deduced from tax returns. Bosch was probably one of the victims of an outbreak of the plague in ’s-Hertogenbosch in the summer of 1516. He was buried in the churchyard of the city’s St Janskerk. His patrons belonged to the circle of the Burgundian Habsburg Court and the wealthy bourgeoisie in Brabant.
Regrettably, the surviving documents contain little information about Bosch’s activities as an artist. The only documented commission for a painting dates from September 1504, when he was asked to paint a Last Judgement for Philip the Handsome, Duke of Brabant, which indicates that he was a recognised artist. Apart from that, only a few minor commissions are recorded, among others for polychroming an altarpiece and for designing a crucifix.
Opinions on the attribution of the paintings differ considerably. None of the paintings are dated, and their chronology is the subject of much discussion. Until 2010, more than 30 paintings were attributed to Bosch, of which nine are signed ‘Jheronimus Bosch’. Between 2010 and 2015 the Dutch Bosch Research and Conservation Project (BRCP) investigated most of them and concluded that whereas 21 are works made by the master himself, four are from his workshop, seven were executed by followers, and two are either made by his workshop or by a follower.3
Eight of these 21 paintings are triptychs: The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych,4 probably commissioned by Engelbert van Nassau (1451-1504), the two versions of The Haywain,5 The Last Judgement, signed,6 The Last Judgement with Saint James the Apostle and Saint Bavo (or Saint Hippolyte),7 The Temptation of St Antony, signed,8 Hermits Saints Triptych Sts Jerome, Antony and Giles, signed,9 The Adoration of the Magi,10 and The Martyrdom of St Wilgefortis, signed ‘Julia’ (?).11 Three individual panels are also signed: St John on Patmos,12 St Christopher,13 and Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins.14
Although most specialists now agree that other members of the workshop participated in the execution of many of Bosch’s works, Koreny attributed a number of major works, such as The Haywain triptych, the Lissabon triptych and The Last Judgement in Bruges, to his pupils.15 To complicate matters, several works are known only through copies. Jheronimus Bosch was hugely popular in the second half of the 16th century, and this gave rise to the large number of copies and pastiches executed long after his death that have survived. The latter group (see SK-A-3113, SK-A-1601, SK-A-3240, SK-A-1673, SK-A-4131) consists of new inventions in Bosch’s style using elements or quotations from his paintings.
References
Van Mander 1604, fols. 216v-17r; Cohen in Thieme/Becker IV, 1910, pp. 386-90; Friedländer V, 1927, pp. 70-106; De Tolnay 1937, pp. 75-82; Baldass 1943, pp. 5-82; De Tolnay 1965, pp. 407-08; Gerlach 1967; ENP V, 1969, pp. 45-58; Marijnissen 1987, pp. 11-14; Miedema III, 1996, pp. 48-58; Gibson in Saur XIII, 1996, pp. 160-62; Vandenbroeck in Turner 1996, IV, pp. 445-54; Van Dijck 2001, pp. 139-205; Vink 2001; Silver 2006, pp. 127-59; Huys Janssen 2007; Koreny 2012, pp. 86-113; ’s-Hertogenbosch 2016, pp. 11-12; Schwartz 2016, pp. 36-52; Ilsink et al. 2016, pp. 13-32; Madrid 2016, pp. 17-41; BoschDoc
J. Bogers, 2010
Updated by J.P. Filedt Kok, 2016
Entry
The subject of this painting is the moment when Pilate, in the presence of the high priests, shows Christ crowned with thorns to the Jewish people (John 19:4-7). The painting is a fairly faithful copy of the Ecce Homo in Frankfurt (fig. a), which is commonly regarded as an early work by Bosch.16 The copy lacks the inscriptions in gold lettering: ‘Ecce Homo’ (Behold the man) spoken by Pilate, ‘Crucifige eum’ (Crucify him) chanted by the Jewish people, and the appeal to the Redeemer on the corner of the rostrum, ‘Salva nos Christe redemptor’ (Save us, O Christ the Redeemer). X-ray photographs of the Frankfurt panel revealed that the latter words were being spoken by two donors kneeling at the foot of the rostrum, who were probably painted out quite early in the 16th century. When it was restored in 1983, their shadowy outlines could once again be seen.17 Instead of the donors, the Amsterdam copy shows a round window with Barabbas in the dungeon.18
The copyist also followed the Frankfurt painting fairly precisely in palette and drawing, and it seems that he was able to use the original as his model. In addition to the Latin inscriptions in gold, the copy also lacks Christ’s halo, as well as the broad strip with ornamental decoration on the green costume of the left-hand onlooker.
Dendrochronology shows that the Amsterdam panel can be dated to the 1530s, and the fact that it does not show the donors is taken as an indication that they were overpainted in the Frankfurt original quite early on. However, it is equally conceivable that the copyist deliberately replaced them with Barabbas in order to make his painting easier to sell. There are several other copies without either the window and Barabbas or the donors.19
The Amsterdam copy may have come into the possession of the Brigittine convent of Mariënwater in Koudewater, near ’s-Hertogenbosch, as early as the first half of the 16th century. When the convent closed in 1713, the nuns took its contents with them when they moved to Maria Refugie Abbey in Uden. This panel was one of a group of five early Netherlandish paintings and several medieval statues that Victor de Stuers bought from the Brigittine sisters in Uden in 1875 for the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst.20 The Ecce Homo panel was thus one of the nation’s earliest purchases of medieval art. De Stuers bought it as a work by Jheronimus Bosch himself; it was not until 1912 that it was recorded as a copy after Bosch in the Rijksmuseum’s catalogue.21
J. Bogers, 2010
Updated by J.P. Filedt Kok, 2016
Literature
Lafond 1914, p. 43; Friedländer V, 1927, p. 146, no. 77a; ’s-Hertogenbosch 1967, p. 110, no. 26; Arndt 1968, pp. 3-4; Gerlach 1968, p. 380; ENP V, 1969, p. 83, no. 77a; Gerlach 1971, p. 245; Unverfehrt 1980, pp. 90, 262-63, no. 50; Sander in coll. cat. Frankfurt 1993, pp. 32-33; de Vrij 2012, pp. 340-41, no. B.1.1; ’s-Hertogenbosch 2016, p. 183, no. 32; Hoogstede et al. 2016, pp. 446-49, no. S 2
Collection catalogues
1912, p. 347, no. 588a; 1976, p. 136, no. A 4252
Citation
J. Bogers, 2010, 'copy after Jheronimus Bosch, Ecce homo, c. 1530 - c. 1550', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6183
(accessed 23 April 2024 12:01:14).