Object data
oil on panel
support: height 52.2 cm × width 29 cm
depth 5.8 cm
The (Bruges) Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula (workshop of)
Inner Left Wing of a Triptych with the Donor, his Two Sons and St John the Evangelist
c. 1480 - c. 1485
Technical notes
The support is a single vertically grained oak plank, 0.3-0.5 cm thick. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1461. The panel could have been ready for use by 1472, but a date in or after 1486 is more likely. A white ground was applied on the reverse and then painted black. The whitish ground must have been applied to both sides of the panel when it was in the original frame, as there are unpainted edges of approx. 1.2-1.5 cm on both sides. On the front, where the ground was applied rather thickly, there are also remains of a barbe on all sides (painted surface: 49.5 x 25.9 cm). Infrared reflectography revealed a refined underdrawing in brush for St John’s red garment and the landscape (fig. b). The shadows in the garment were indicated with parallel hatchings. The rocks, trees and other details of the landscape were indicated in a summary fashion, as were the ships in the background, which were subsequently shifted slightly. The figures were reserved, except for the second child on the left, which is painted on top of the paint layers. The paint was applied smoothly, with impasto highlights for the leaves of the tree and the decoration of St John’s chalice.
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared reflectography: M. Wolters / M. Leeflang [2], RKD/RMA, no. RKDG393, 9 May 2006
- condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 10 May 2006
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 31 August 2007
Condition
Fair. The paint is abraded, especially in the upper part of the panel. There is some discoloured retouching and a slightly yellowed varnish.
Provenance
…; collection Dominicus Antonius Josephus Kessler (1855-1939) and Mrs A.C.M.H. Kessler-Hülsmann (1868-1947), Kapelle op den Bosch, near Mechelen;1 donated, with xx other objects, by Mrs A.C.M.H. Kessler-Hülsmann to the museum, 1940
Object number: SK-A-3326
Credit line: Gift of Mr and Mrs Kessler-Hülsmann, Kapelle op den Bosch
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
The (Bruges) Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula (active c. 1470-1500)
In 1903, following on the Bruges exhibition of 1902, Friedländer grouped the oeuvre of the (Bruges) Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula, around the Panels with the Legend of St Ursula, the Church and the Synagogue in Bruges2, locating it in Bruges between 1470 and 1490. He attributed some 20 paintings to the master. Marlier believed that the artist had trained as a miniaturist in a Bruges workshop, and proposed a chronology for the oeuvre, dating the painting from which the master took his name to shortly before 1483 on the evidence of data on the construction of Belfort, which is seen in the background.
Levine has already pointed out that the paintings given to the master often have little in common with the name work, and that there are relatively large differences in quality between all of them. Syfer-d’Olne and Toussaint relegated the two paintings attributed to the artist in the Brussels museum to anonymous in the 2006 catalogue.
Janssens recently provided further support for the proposed identification of the artist with Pieter Casenbroot the Elder (1436-1504/05), who became a master painter in Bruges in 1459-60.
References
Friedländer 1903c, p. 85; Friedländer VI, 1928, pp. 66-91, 147-75; Vollmer in Thieme/Becker XXXVII, 1950, p. 335; Marlier 1964; De Vos et al. in Bruges 1969, pp. 29-46, 195-204; ENP VIa, 1971, pp. 38-41, 44, 59-61; Levine 1989; De Vos in Bruges 1994, pp. 196-207; Griffiths in Turner 1996, XX, pp. 716-17; Janssens 2004; Syfer-d’Olne and Toussaint in coll. cat. Brussels 2006, pp. 320-23
(J.P. Filedt Kok)
Entry
The panel shows a male donor wearing a long fur-lined gown and two of his sons with St John the Evangelist holding his attribute of a chalice with a dragon. The painting is the fully preserved left wing of a small triptych, the right wing of which with a donatrix, a female saint and four daughters was last seen at an auction in 1924 (fig. a).3 The centre panel has not yet been identified.4
The Rijksmuseum panel has not been given a place in the rather heterogenous oeuvre attributed to the Master of the Legend of St Ursula in the art-historical literature. Nevertheless, the way in which the vegetation, rocky landscape and figures are handled is quite close to the manner of the Triptych with the Nativity in Detroit,5 which is traditionally one of the works given to the master. This makes it likely that the small triptych of which this was a wing was made around 1480-90 in the workshop of the Master of the Legend of St Ursula in Bruges, and this is borne out by the dendrochronology.6
The delicate underdrawing beneath St John’s clothing (fig. b), and the distinctive way in which the trees are sketchily drawn, may provide a clue for the attribution. The underdrawing of the triptych by the Ursula Master in Detroit, which was examined by Molly Faries with infrared reflectography, is extremely complex, because it consists of two different scenes executed one after the other.7 However, there are no direct similarities to the type of underdrawing in the Rijksmuseum panel.
(J.P. Filedt Kok)
Literature
Verslagen LXIII (1940), p. 8 (as Master of the Legend of St Ursula, c. 1490); Vollmer in Thieme/Becker XXXVII, 1950, p. 335 (as Master of the Legend of St Ursula); Marlier 1964, p. 40, no. 53 (as not by the Master of the Legend of St Ursula); Van Wegen 2005, pp. 230-31
Collection catalogues
1976, p. 635, no. A 3326 a (as Master of the Legend of St Ursula)
Citation
J.P. Filedt Kok, 2010, 'workshop of Meester van de (Brugse) Legende van de H. Ursula, Inner Left Wing of a Triptych with the Donor, his Two Sons and St John the Evangelist, c. 1480 - c. 1485', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.9059
(accessed 19 April 2024 17:45:49).Figures
fig. b Infrared reflectogram assembly of SK-A-3326 (© Stichting RKD)
fig. a Workshop of the Master of the Legend of St Ursula, Right Wing of a Triptych with the Female Donor, her Four Daughters and a Female Saint, c. 1485. Oil on panel, 50 x 29 cm. Present whereabouts unknown
fig. b Infrared reflectogram assembly of SK-A-3326 (© Stichting RKD)