Lot 11: Jan van Dornicke, The Master of 1518 (Antwerp c. 1470-c. 1527)

A Triptych: central panel: The Crucifixion; left wing: Christ carrying the Cross; right wing: The Entombment oil on panel 47 x 68 in. (119.5 x 172.8 cm.), the wings extended NOTES Jan van Dornicke's father was the sculptor Jan Mertens the Elder (active Antwerp c. 1473-1509), whose family is thought to have originated in Tournai. The younger Mertens was apprenticed to the painter Jan Gossaert in 1505, and was himself the teacher of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, who married his daughter, Anna, before 1526. Coecke's work has been used as the basis for the identification of Van Dornicke with the Master of 1518, an Antwerp painter named after the date inscribed on the painted wings of a carved wooden altarpiece of the Life of the Virgin in the Marienkirche, Lbeck. The sharp focus, lively narrative and exaggerated poses evident in the painted wings in Lbeck are characteristic of Antwerp Mannerism, but Van Dornicke's work is in addition distinguished by its brilliant colour, sense of structure, thoughtful composition and delicacy of style. A similar Crucifixion triptych (although depicting the Resurrection on the right wing) is recorded by Friedl„nder in the Royal Collection, Hampton Court ( Early Netherlandish Painting, Leiden, 1974, XI, no. 87, pl. 80). Marlier ( Pierre Coeck D'Alost, Brussels, 1966, pp. 184-7) suggested that, on stylistic grounds, it was possible that that composition indicated the influence, or indeed collaboration, of Coecke van Aelst, a hypothesis he supported by stylistic comparison with the former's Crucifixion triptych in the Chapelle du Saint-Sang, Brussels. Certainly, those two, the present and Coecke van Aelst's Paul Robyns triptych (present location unknown; see Friedl„nder, op. cit., XII, no. 143, pl. 74) together illustrate the debt owed by Coecke to Van Dornicke. The composition of the central panel is influenced by that of an engraving by the Master I.A. of Zwolle, datable to before 1490 (see the catalogue of the exhibition, Middeleeuwse Kunst der Noordelijke Nederlanden, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 1958, fig. 107). Within that, in turn, the motif of Saint John holding the Virgin owe to the work of Rogier van der Weyden and his workshop (for example, the painting attributed to Vranke van der Stoct in Chantilly). SALESROOM NOTICE Please note the additional information: PROVENANCE: Albert von Hirsch. Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, 1908 catalogue, pp. 167 ff., nos. 554a-c, by whom deaccessioned in 1952. Acquired by the father of the present owner by 1959. EXHIBITED: Lier, Musea Wuyts-Van Campen en Caroly, Kerkelijke Kunst, 12 September-18 October 1959, no. 3. LITERATURE: W.R. Valentiner, in Repertorium fr Kunstwissenschaft, 28, 1905, p. 260, no. 6. U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Knstler, 37, Leipzig, 1950, p. 21.