The Baptism of Christ

c. 1508/1519

Juan de Flandes

Artist, Hispano-Flemish, active 1496 - 1519

A young, bearded man wearing only a white loincloth stands facing us in a pale blue river with a man to one side and a winged angel to the other in this vertical painting. They all have pale or tanned skin and tawny-brown hair. The man at the center, Jesus, stands knee-deep in the placid water with his hands together in prayer. He looks off to our left, his hollow eyes set above a drooping mouth. To our left, a man kneels on the rocky riverbank and trickles water from his hand onto Jesus’s head. That man wears a fawn-brown robe under a raspberry-red cloak. He is bearded with curly brown hair, and he has dark circles under his eyes and a downturned mouth. The winged angel stands to our right on a flat stone, closer to us. Gold and pink wings rise vertically along the right edge of the composition. The angel wears voluminous white robes and holds a marine-blue garment in both hands. A white dove hovering over Jesus’s head is surrounded by a halo edged with teal, pea-green, and pink rings. A bearded man wearing a tiered, jeweled crown looks down from a round opening in the ice-blue sky above the dove. He holds one hand up in blessing and holds an orb topped by a cross in the other. About ten fish nibble at the rocks near Jesus’s feet in the river, which winds through a pale green field to a town of turrets and towers in the distance.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 124.2 x 79 cm (48 7/8 x 31 1/8 in.)
    overall (panel): 125.3 x 81.1 cm (49 5/16 x 31 15/16 in.)
    framed: 143.2 x 99.1 x 10.8 cm (56 3/8 x 39 x 4 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1961.9.25

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Altarpiece of the "capilla mayor (main chapel)," church of San Lázaro, Palencia, commissioned c. 1508, until at least 1761.[1] Acquired c. 1952 by (Frederick Mont, New York);[2] purchased 11 February 1953 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] Don Sancho de Castilla made the commission. A 1761 document confirming its presence in the church was discovered by Ignace Vandevivere, Primitifs flamands. Corpus. La cathédrale de Palencia et l'église paroissiale de Cervera de Pisuerga, Brussels, 1967: 45.
[2] In 1952 all four panels now in the Gallery (1961.9.22-.25) were with Frederick Mont in New York; see letter of 28 October 1952 from Chandler R. Post to Mont in NGA curatorial files. Mont refers to having bought the pictures in Spain in a letter dated 16 April 1953 to Wilhelm Valentiner (Valentiner Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington: microfilm reel no. 2143; copies in NGA curatorial files).
{3} See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2086.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2020

  • Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spain, National Gallery of Art, Washington; Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, 2019-2021, unnumbered catalogue, not reproduced (shown only in Dallas).

Bibliography

1887

  • Justi, Carl. "Juan de Flandes, ein niederländischer Hofmaler Isabella der Katholischen." Jahrbuch der königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen (Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen) 8 (1887): 167.

1907

  • Winkler, [Friedrich]. "Juan de Flandes." In Thieme-Becker. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950:19(1926):279.

1908

  • Justi, Carl. Miscellaneen aus drei Jahrhunderten spanischen Kunstlebens. 2 vols. Berlin, 1908: 1:324.

1909

  • Mayer, August L. "Studien zur Quattrocento-malerei in Nordwestkastilien." Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 32 (1909): 519.

1913

  • Mayer, August L. Geschichte der spanischen Malerei. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1913: 1:149.

1917

  • Moreno Villa, José. "Un pintor de la reina católica." Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones 25 (1917): 281.

1932

  • H[ulin] de L[oo], [Georges]. Trésor de l'art flamand du moyen âge au XVIIIe siècle. Mémorial de l'exposition d'art flamand ancien à Anvers. 1930. 2 vols. Paris, 1932: 1:51.

1933

  • Post, Chandler Rathfon. A History of Spanish Painting. 14 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 19303-1966: 4, pt. 1:45, 50.

1950

  • Revilla Vielva, Ramón. "Retablo Mayor de la Santa Iglesia Catedral de Palencia." Publicaciones de la Institución "Tello Téllez de Meneses" no. 5 (1950): 98.

1952

  • Brans, Jan V. L. Isabel la Católica y el arte Hispano-Flamenco. Madrid, 1952: 96-98, pl. 43.

  • Museo del Prado. Catálogo. Madrid (and later editions), 1952: 204.

1953

  • Brans, Jan V. L. "Juan de Flandes, pintor de la Reina y de Castilla." Clavileño 4, no. 21 (1953): 29, 32.

1954

  • Sánchez Cantón, Francisco Javier. "Las adquisiciones del Museo del Prado en los años 1952 y 1953." Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueologia 27 (1954): 5.

1955

  • Gudiol Ricart, José. Pintura Gótica. In Ars Hispaniae. 22 vols. Madrid, 1955: 9:259-260.

1956

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 110, no. 42, repro. 113.

1957

  • Gudiol, José. "Oeuvres inédites de Jean de Flandres." Miscellanea Prof. Dr. D. Roggen. Antwerp, 1957: 116, 118.

1958

  • Post, Chandler Rathfon. A History of Spanish Painting. 14 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1958: 12, part 2:615, 618, 620, 622-625, figs. 262, 263.

  • Gaya Nuño, Juan Anotonio. La pintura española fuera de España; historia y catàlogo. Madrid, 1958: 148, nos. 761, 762.

1959

  • Brans, Jan V. L. Vlaamse schilders in dienst der Koningen van Spanje. Louvain, 1959: 55.

  • Eisler, Colin. "Juan de Flandes's Saint Michael and Saint Francis." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin n.s. 18 (1959): 130.

  • Sánchez Cantón, Francisco Javier. The Prado. New York, 1959: 138.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 267, repro.

1962

  • Bermejo, Elisa. Juan de Flandes. Madrid, 1962: 28-31, 44, pls. 36-39.

  • Puyvelde, Leo van. La peinture flamande au siècle de Bosch et Breughel. Paris, 1962: 353.

1963

  • Sammlung Heinz Kisters. Altdeutsche und altniederländische Gemälde. Exh. cat. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg, 1963: 14-15, under no. 76.

1964

  • Anzelewsky, Fedja. "Der Meister der Lübecker Bibel von 1494." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 27 (1964): 57.

1965

  • Held, Julius S. "The Bearing of the Cross Hitherto Attributed to Juan de Flandes." The Art Quarterly 38 (1965): 31.

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 71.

1967

  • Vandevivere, Ignace. Primitifs flamands. Corpus. La cathédrale de Palencia et l'église paroissiale de Cervera de Pisuerga. Brussels, 1967: 44-47.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 62, repro.

1969

  • Osten, Gert von der, and Horst Vey. Painting and Sculpture in Germany and the Netherlands 1500 to 1600. Harmondsworth, 1969: 142.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 182, 184, repro. 183, 185.

1976

  • Lurie, Ann Tzeutschler. "Birth and Naming of St. John the Baptist Attributed to Juan de Flandes: A Newly Discovered Panel from a Hypothetical Altarpiece." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63 (1976): 127, fig. 21.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 188, fig. 190.

1978

  • Rogers, Millard F., Jr. Spanish Paintings in the Cincinnati Art Museum. Cincinnati, 1978: 12.

1979

  • De Coo, Josef, and Nicole Reynaud. "Origen del retablo de San Juan Bautista atribuido a Juan de Flandes." Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueologia 52 (1979): 140-141, figs. 7, 9.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. Washington, 1984: 138, no. 139, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 212, repro.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1986: 125-133, repro. 129.

1998

  • Denny, Don. "Baptism." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 1:107.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 59, no. 45, color repro.

2011

  • Weniger, Matthias. Sittow, Morros, Juan de Flandes: Drei Maler aus dem Norden am Hof Isabellas der Katholischen. Kiel, 2011: 250-255, no. 12.4, fig. 179.

Wikidata ID

Q20175093

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