CRISPIN VAN DEN BROECK | AN ALLEGORY OF TRUTH AND DECEPTION

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 8 December 2004, lot 18;

With Adam Williams Fine Art, New York;

From whom acquired 20 April 2006. 

Head of a family of artists active in Mechelen and later Antwerp, Crispin van den Broeck was a painter, draughtsman, and designer of prints and temporary decorations for "Joyous Entries" and theater. He was an assistant to Frans Floris, from whom he absorbed the Romanist style, and together with Frans Pourbus, he finished some of Floris's works after his death.  Although only around 23 extant paintings have been attributed to Van den Broeck, sixteenth and seventeenth-century inventories list many paintings by the artist, mainly of biblical or mythological subjects. The present example is a complex allegory that shows Van den Broeck's engagement with Italian and Flemish sources and his facility with erudite subjects.

On the left, Truth holds up a lighted candle and a set of scales and rests her foot on a globe, symbolizing the light of truth, weighing of souls, and dominion over the world. On her head perches a white dove, labeled Den gheest der Waerheyt [The spirit of Truth]. Her book is open to passages from the Gospel of John about truth and one passage labeled ESDRAE but which apparently does not correspond to any text in the book of Esdras. Opposite Truth sits two-faced Deception, who faces Truth with her female head, hiding her gruesome second head, whose tongue is a snake. She is clothed in red and holds a stone with the image of a skull, while at her feet are a second set of scales, a horn and a book. These signify the rejection of justice, truth, and Scripture, which ultimately lead to Satan (snake) and death. The bat on her head represents Den gheest der Lueghenen [the spirit of Lies], and her book is open to Biblical passages about lying and deceit taken from Samuel, Genesis, Jeremiah, Psalms, and the Gospel of John. Van den Broeck carefully selected the Biblical passages from both the Old and New Testaments and rendered them perfectly legible to viewers, so that the identities of Truth and Deception are clear and have Christian significance. 

This picture is stylistically related to a signed and dated Last Judgment from 1560 in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels.¹ Some of Van den Broeck's many engravings may also have reproduced paintings. The composition and iconography of the present work relate to engravings of the Miles Christianus: Battle of the Virtues against Vices and Death, engraved by Hans Collaert I, and Allegory of Religion, engraved by an anonymous artist.²

1. Oil on panel, 124 by 103.5 cm. Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, inv. no. 2617.

2. See U. Mielke and G. Luijten, Crispijn van den Broeck, part II. The New Hollstein Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts, 1450 -1700, Amsterdam 2011, pp. 22-27, cat. nos. 209, 210.