Old Master Drawings

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Lot 10
  • 10

Hans Bol Mechelen 1534 - 1593 (?) Amsterdam

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Description

  • Hans Bol
  • the crucifixion
  • signed and dated in brown ink, lower left: HA.S BOL/1573, and again, at bottom, right of centre: H BOL/1573. 
    bears old numbering, verso: 1936. 
  • pen and brown ink and brown and two shades of grey wash heightened with white (partly oxidised)

Provenance

A. Mathews, Poole, catalogue 65 (Autumn 1964). no. 148;  
Dr J.A. van Dongen;
Jacobus A. Klaver, his mark (not in Lugt);
His Sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 10 May 1994, lot 29

Exhibited

Amsterdam, Museum Willet-Holthuysen, Schilderijen, tekeningen en beeldhouwwerken 16e-20e eeuw uit de verzameling van Dr J.A. van Dongen, 1968, no. 29; 
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Tekeningen van Oude Meesters, De Verzameling Jacobus A. Klaver, 1993, cat. no. 3.

Literature

T. Gerszi, Netherlandish Drawings in the Budapest Museum: Sixteenth Century Drawings, Amsterdam/New York 1971, vol. I, under no. 17;
D.J. Johnson, Old Master Drawings from the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island 1983, p. 212, under no. 74, note 6; 
K.G.Boon, The Netherlandish and German Drawings of the XVth and XVIth Centuries of the Frits Lugt Collection, Paris 1992, vol. I, p. 41, under no. 22, p. 42 notes 13 and 15, vol. II, fig. 39b.

Catalogue Note

In this representation of the Crucifixion, Bol has based his image on the version of the story provided by St. John (19: 31-34), who includes several episodes and details not described in the other Gospels.  According to John, certain of the Jews did not wish the bodies of Christ and the two thieves to remain on their crosses until the following day, as this was an important feast day.  They therefore asked Pilate if he would have the legs of the three victims broken up, to hasten their demise.  Accordingly, soldiers climbed up on ladders and broke the legs of the two thieves with their swords.  But when they came to Christ, they saw that he was already dead, so they did not strike him, although one of their number pierced his side with a lance; this soldier is depicted mounted, to the left of the present composition.

The drawing appears to have been made as a preparatory study for the central panel of a small painted triptych which would have been used as a domestic devotional altar.  The drawings for the two side panels, corresponding in technique with the present sheet, have also survived: the study for The Adoration of the Shepherds is at the Insitut Néerlandais, Paris (inv.3746), while the drawing of The Resurrection is in Providence, Rhode Island (Rhode Island School of Design, inv.52.304).  These two drawings are both the same height as the present sheet, but only half as wide, lending credence to the theory that the three compositions were together intended for a folding altar.  Bol's painted triptych based on these three drawings is lost, although a much later altarpiece (dated 1593) incorporating versions of the three compositions does survive (private collection: see Heinrich Gerhard Franz, 'Beiträge zum Werk des Hans Bol', Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Institutes der Universität Graz, 14, 1979, pp. 205-6, figs.10-12 on pls. LXVIII and LXIX).  In this triptych, however, Bol increased the width of the side panels to make their proportions the same as those of the central painting.

It appears that Bol must have been particularly satisfied with this composition, as he produced several other versions of it during the course of his career: in addition to the painting of 1593 there survive two gouaches, dated 1587 and 1590 (Rhode Island School of Design, and Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, respectively; see Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, 1993, for further information).