The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine

c. 1540

Antwerp 16th Century

Painter

Matthys Cock

Painter, Netherlandish, c. 1509 - 1548

We float high above the land, looking across rolling hills toward a shimmering, aquamarine-blue body of water to our left and towns peppered along taller mountains to our right, beneath an incoming storm in this horizontal painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting. Only upon closer inspection does one discover dozens of tiny men and women scattered in groups or individually across the landscape. Closest to us but still tiny in scale, at the lower center, a man wearing a scarlet-red tunic and dark pants chops down a tree as another man wearing navy blue walks away from us. A man snoozes on the grass nearby and another squats in the protection of a hollowed out tree, pants down, in the lower left corner of the painting. The rolling, light brown hills angle away from us to our left. Atop a hill to our left, a tall frame holds up two flaming wheels. At its foot, a person wearing robes kneels and looks up, arms raised, at the wheel, which is on fire. Three people, one wearing armor, lie nearby and others run away. A structure on a rocky outcropping nearby is also on fire, and black smoke billows skyward. In the harbor below, at the center of the composition, two ships tip wildly in the water. People walk and work in pairs and groups through the rest of the landscape, including a bustle of activity around a wooden ship being built to our right. Travelers on foot and on horseback follow a winding road along the harbor toward a castle on the far promontory. Beyond that lies a ship-filled port town, and, across a drawbridge on at the far right, a walled city in the hazy distance. Clouds rolling across the left half of the painting are charcoal gray, almost black. To our right, patches of bright blue sky peek through a thin screen of white clouds.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on plywood transferred from panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 62.2 x 118.2 cm (24 1/2 x 46 9/16 in.)
    framed: 86.3 x 141.6 x 8.2 cm (34 x 55 3/4 x 3 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.2.18

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Van Diemen Gallery, Berlin).[1] Acquired 1926 in Berlin by Mendel Mayer Rössler [1879-1951];[2] (Van Diemen-Lilienfeld Galleries, New York); sold 1950 Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 by exchange to NGA.
[1] The catalogue of the Exposition d'Art flamand ancien (Antwerp, 1930), no. 53, gives the owner as Dr. Benedict; this refers to Curt Benedict who was with the Van Diemen Gallery, part of a group of galleries under the umbrella organization of the Margraf Concern. The initial ownership of the painting by the Van Diemen-Margraf Gallery is verified in a letter of 27 January 1951 from Karl Lilienfeld to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, in NGA curatorial files.
[2] Rössler, a Polish national, sold this picture in Amsterdam in 1940 to the dealer Walter Paech, who then sold the painting to Hans Posse for Hitler's planned museum in Linz. (See Linz inventory no. 1368, as by Brueghel, National Archives RG260/Boxes 428, 430, copies NGA curatorial files). The records of the Munich Central Collecting Point indicate that the painting was recovered at Alt Aussee and restituted to the Netherlands on 4 March 1946 (See Munich property card #4347/2996, National Archives RG260/Munich Central Collecting Point/Box 501 and Dutch Receipt for Cultural Property no. 8A, dated 7 March 1946, National Archives RG260/Munich Central Collecting Point/Box 288, both copies NGA curatorial files.) The painting was restituted to Rössler on 23 May 1947 (see documentation provided by the Dutch Inspectie Culuurbezit in letter dated 5 February 2002, in NGA curatorial files.)
[3] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2241.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1930

  • Exposition d'Art flamand ancien, Antwerp, 1930, no. 53, as Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

1998

  • A Collector's Cabinet, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, no. 19.

2003

  • Die Flämische Landschaft 1520-1700, Kulturstiftung Ruhr, Villa Hügel, Essen; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 2003-2004, no. 31, repro.

Bibliography

1931

  • Michel, Edouard. Bruegel. Paris, 1931: 75, pl. 46.

1932

  • Michel, Edouard. "Hypothèses sur quelques peintures flamandes à propos de Bruegel le Vieux." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 7 (1932): 132, fig. 3.

  • Glück, Gustav. Bruegels Gemälde. Vienna (1937 ed.): 93, no. 81.

1935

  • De Tolnay, Charles. Pierre Bruegel l'Ancien. Brussels, 1935: 97, no. 56.

1936

  • Glück, Gustav. Das Bruegel Buch. Vienna, 1936: no. 2, repro. 10, 20.

1938

  • Wetering, Cornelis van de. Die Entwicklung der niederländischen Landschaftsmalerei vom Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts bis zur Jahrhundertmitte. Berlin, 1938: 79, pl. 5 (diagram).

1951

  • Glück, Gustav. Pieter Bruegel the Elder. London, 1951: 9, 17, no. 2, repro. (also Vienna, 1951).

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 202, no. 89, repro., as Landscape with the Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria by Pieter Bruegel, the Elder.

1959

  • Gudlaugsson, S. J. "Het Errera-schetsboek en Lucas van Valckenborch." Oud Holland 74 (1959): 129.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 290, repro., as by Pieter Bruegel, the Elder.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 21, as by Pieter Bruegel, the Elder.

1967

  • Bianconi, Piero. The Complete Paintings of Bruegel. New York, 1967: 87, no. 2, repro. 88.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 14, repro., as by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

  • Klein, H. Arthur, and Mina Klein. Peter Bruegel the Elder. Artist of Abundance. New York, 1968: 184.

  • Koch, Robert A. Joachim Patinir. Princeton, 1968: 9.

  • Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 113.

1969

  • Franz, Heinrich Gerhard. Niederländische Landschaftsmalerei im Zeitalter des Manierismus. 2 vols. Graz, 1969: 2: fig. 189.

1971

  • Wied, Alexander. "Lucas van Valckenborch." Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses (Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien) 31 (1971): 137.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue (National Gallery of Art). Washington, 1975: 50-51, repro., as by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: no. 192, repro.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 91-93, fig. 90, text fig. 16, as Landscape with Scenes from the Life of St. Catherine of Alexandria.

1980

  • Wied, Alexander. Bruegel. Translated by Anthony Lloyd. London, 1980: 12, fig. 13.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 168, no. 186, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 32, repro.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1986: 3-6, repro. 2.

2002

  • Muller, Elke and Helen Schretlen. BetwistBezit: De Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit en de teruggave van roofkunst na 1945. Zwolle, 2002: 105, 171, fig. 63, 188-191, 219.

Wikidata ID

Q20176248

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