Lot 20: Cornelis Engelbrechtsz. (active Leiden 1460/5-1527)

The Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary, Saints Mary Magdalen, John the Baptist and Peter
oil on panel
24 1/4 x 21 1/2 in. (62.5 x 54.5 cm.)

Paris, Musée du Louvre, Exposition des Orphelins d'Alsace- Lorraine, 1885, no. 489.
Central Museum, Ütrecht, Noord - Nederlandsche schilder - en beeldhouwkunst voor 1575, 1913, no. 166.

M.J. Friedländer, Alterniederländische Malerei, Leiden, 1932, vol. X, p. 131, no. 88, plate 88.
G.J. Hoogewerff, De Noord-Nederlandse Schilderkunst, The Hague, 1936-47, III, p. 202, and V, p. 133, no. 31, as 'workshop'.
E. Pelinck, 'Cornelis Engelbrechtsz. de herkomst van zijn kunst', in Nederlandsch Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, II, 1948-9, p. 53.
W.S. Gibson, The Paintings of Cornelis Engelbrechtsz, New York and London, 1977, p. 265, no. 85, under 'Miscellaneous School Pieces'.
M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, Leiden, 1973, X, pp. 40 and 79, no. 88, pl. 71, fig. 88.

Pelletier collection, Paris.
with Weinberger, Paris, 1931, from whom bought by Charles Fabri. Thence by descent to the present owners.

THE PROPERTY OF A EUROPEAN FAMILY

In the sixteenth century influences from Renaissance Italy permeated Dutch art, and Dutch artists were drawn to Antwerp in the southern Netherlands, then both the most important port in European and an important center of artistic activity. Amongst these artists was Jan Mostaert, who incorporated Renaissance motifs in his altarpieces and portraits, while retaining the Dutch penchant for meticulous detail and objectivity, and Cornelis Engelbrechtsz., who painted in the style of the so-called 'Antwerp Mannerists', often with crowded compositions filled with elongated and twisting figures.

Cornelis Engelbrechtsz. was a northern Netherlandish painter active in Leiden. His principal works are two triptychs executed for the Augustinian convent of Marienpoel in Oestgeest, near Leiden: a Lamentation of circa 1508 and a Crucifixion of circa 1517-22 now both in the Stedelijk Museum, Leiden; see M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, X, Leiden and Brussels, 1975, pl. 61 and 65). Although his style is related to that of the Antwerp Mannerists, there is no evidence that Cornelis had received his training in Antwerp. In the Leiden Crucifixion the surface is crowded with animated figures dressed in fanciful costumes, whose expressions display overly rhetorical gestures of grief or brutality. The present painting, along with another Crucifixion in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (Friedländer, op. cit., pl. 71), is on a smaller scale than the Leiden Crucifixion, and both likely date to circa 1520, when Cornelis's work becomes less turbulent and altogether less exaggerated both in emotion and composition. Throughout his oeuvre, Cornelis's technique is extremely refined, with warm colors, enamel-like surfaces and areas of bright hues. Although Carel van Mander insists that Cornelis was the teacher of Lucas van Leyden, there is little in his art that relates to Lucas's early works.

The depiction of the sun and moon in the present painting, one on either side of the Cross, was commonplace in Medieval depictions of the Crucifixion, surviving into the early Renaissance, but appearing infrequently after the fifteenth century. The origins appear to go back to Ancient times, where it was customary in Persia and Greece to represent the sun and moon as images of pagan sun gods, a practice that was carried into Roman times on coins depicting emperors. It seems to have found its way into primitive Christian art through the festival of Christmas, which replaced an existing pagan feast celebrating the rebirth of the sun. Long before the first representations of the Crucifixion, the sun and moon appeared in other Christian themes including the Baptism, the Good Shepherd, and Christ in Glory, and thus, when Christ on the Cross began to be depicted in art, the appropriateness of the theme was well established in the Bible and by theologians. The synoptic gospels relate that when Christ was crucified, a darkness fell over the whole of the land, which lasted until three in the afternoon. The eclipse was thought to be a sign that the heavens went into mourning at the death of the Savior, but more specifically, according to Saint Augustine, the sun and moon symbolized the prefigurative relationship of the two Testaments: the Old (the moon) was only to be understood through the light shed on it by the New (the sun).

The present work was examined by Walter Gibson and Filedt Kok in 1988, who concluded that it was 'most likely an authentic painting by Engelbrechtsz., possibly executed between 1510 and 1520' (private communication, 21 February 2000).