Jan Gossart, called Mabuse

Lord Taunton;
L. Vieweg, Hannover;
F. Steinmeyer, Lucerne, 1924;
Reinhardt, New York, 1927;
Ellen Conger Goodyear, Akron, Ohio;
Charles W. Goodyear, Buffalo, New York;
Thomas Goodyear, New York;
By whom sold, New York, Parke Bernet, 2 December 1964, lot 102 to Moore;
Dr, Hans Wetzlar, Amsterdam;
Wetzlar sale, 1977, lot 13, bought back for 95,000 Guilders.

 

New York, F. Kleinberger, Loan Exhibition of Flemish Primitives, 1929, no. 77;
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Jan Gossaert bijgenaamd Mabuse, 15 May-27 June 1965, no. 32;
Bruges, Groeningenmuseum, Jan Gossaert dit Mabuse, 10 July-31 August 1965 no. 62;
Laren, 1966, no. 22. 

 

M.J. Friedländer, Die Altniederländische Malerei, Berlin 1930, vol. VIII, p. 163, no. 77, reproduced plate LV;
S. Herzog, in H. Pauwels, H.R. Hoetink, S. Herzog, Jan Gossaert bijgenaamd Mabuse, exhibition catalogue, Rotterdam 1965, p. 193, no. 32, reproduced;
S.J. Herzog, Jan Gossaert Called Mabuse (ca. 1478-1532).  A Study of His Chronology With A Catalogue of His Works, doctoral diss., Bryn Mawr 1968/9, p. 304, no. 48, reproduced plate 58;
M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. VIII, Leiden 1971, p. 100, no. 77, reproduced plate 61;
Voorkeuren, 1985, p. 34, reproduced p. 35.

 

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is presumably on an oak panel, which has been backed and cradled in the twentieth century. The grain is, unexpectedly, horizontal, with one joint that has been reglued probably at the time of the cradling, but perhaps also earlier as there is a fairly wide band of retouching (about an inch), with a stretch in the middle of crackled older filling. Another horizontal patch of crackled old filling can be found in the background to the left of the neck, with a narrower, brief line of old flaking on the opposite side in the background. The overpaint across the dark background is old enough to have its own craquelure, and there are some patches of twentieth century retouching, for instance on the left beneath the stretch of crackled filling. The brocading visible in a raking light appears to continue throughout and cross sections have shown original changes in the under layers also. There seems to be no trace of movement from the more recent past, and the panel may perhaps have been thinned as well as backed. It certainly appears now to be stable. The restoration is fairly old, possibly from the same period as the panel work, with a little more recent sprayed varnish. The head, chest and hands have been virtually unaffected by movement in the wood, with a tiny flake lost at the left edge of the neck and two others just below at the edge of the pale chemise. The delicate, even craquelure is particularly beautiful in the fine surface of the lighter areas. The hands are in exceptionally good condition. The black immediately around the hands appears perhaps blanched as well as slightly thin, conceivably from a search for something held between the fingers, although there could possibly be pentiments visible under X ray. At the base edge there is some discoloured retouching in the white cuffs and also in places on either side of the hands near the base, where there are a few other patches of similar slight wear, with perhaps one or two old lost flakes. The sleeves above seem beautifully preserved generally, especially on the left, up to the band of retouching along the joint, as is the headdress. The delicately gathered chemise is beautifully intact, and the fine modelling of the throat and neck is also in good condition, apart from some wear on the far right side. This extends up the right side of the cheek and into the lower hair, while the denser hair above is well preserved. The more lightly painted line of hair down the left side of the face is also thin. There is some strengthening on the right side around the cheekbone and other light retouching spreads out a little way from the right nostril. Occasional thinness in the some details of the features has been strengthened minimally, with a few touches by the lips, some reinforcement of the shadow above the right eyelid and of the darks at the end of the nose, but the subtle modelling in the flesh painting is finely preserved. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Sabine Herzog dates this portrait to around 1525, or later on in the same decade.¹  She notes similarities in the distinctive rendering of the sitter's hands with those in Gossaert's portrait of the children of Christian II, at Hampton Court, which she dates circa 1524/6 (but is now generally dated 1526), and compares the present sitter's left hand with the almost identical left hand in the so-called portrait of Eleanor of Austria.  The hands of the present sitter, which seem to be agitated and in interactive movement are in contrast to the passive serenity of the sitter's face, which seems almost frozen into immobility.  Herzog notes elsewhere of Gossaert's portraits: "he recognized that the hands are an essential adjunct to the portrait; for the face and the hands alike are the principal outlet by which the intellect and the condition of the soul manifest themselves in man".²

The influence of Leonardo, often to be detected in Gossaert's works, is palpable here.  The sitter's pose and her hair style recall Leonardo's female portraits such as the Lady with the Ermine in the Czartoryski Muzeum, Cracow, and La Belle Ferronière in the Louvre, Paris (see figs. 2 & 3).

The curent neutral dark blue-green background is a later alteration made in the 18th or 19th Century.  Sabine Herzog has noted that  that she may originally have been set before a brocaded hanging, detectable under raking light.³  An X-Ray taken recently shows that beneath the visible background is what appears to be a foliated one made up of flowers and leaves, with possibly one or more figures to the right of the sitter's neck (see Fig. 1).  Such a background (which does not extend under any part of the sitter) is rather unusual for Jan Gossaert, although he did favour architextural backgrounds in some of his portraits.  A recent examiniation conducted by Catherine Hassall discovered that Gossaert used a mid blue, based on azurite and lead white when painting the flowers in the original background, but that this was changed at an early date to plain black.  It impossible to say if this was done by Gossaert, but since no dirt or varnish layer could be found between the blue of the flowers and the black, it is quite likely that it was done before it left his Studio.  The current dark background seems to underscore the Lombard influence, and an original black background would certainly have done so to a yet greater extent. 

The problems of assessing serial production which bedevil the study of much of Gossaert's work affect his portraits much less, since most of them, including the Wetzlar picture, are known in single versions, or if not, a prime version is usually self-evident. 

A recent dendrochronological investigation by Ian Tyers reveals that both horizontal planks that make up the panel have last growth rings only one year apart.  An earliest possible date of use for them is circa 1510, but a later felling date is more likely, and the panel is thus consistent with Herzog's dating of 1525-30. 

1.  Herzog, 1965, as datable 1525/30;
2.  See Herzog, 1968/9, p. 144.
3.  S.J. Herzog, 1968/9 as datable circa 1525 or later.