Ambrosius Benson

Parish Church of Santa Cruz, Nájera, Rioja, Spain, until 1913/14;
With Sam Hartveld, New York (or Antwerp);
Anonymous sale, New York, Parke Bernet, 15 November 1950, lot 73 (as by Mabuse);
Dr. Ricardo Espíritu Santu Silva (d.1954), Lisbon;
Art market, Paris, (Boccara), 1969;
With Brimo de Laroussilhe, Paris, from whom acquired by the father of the present owners.

C. Justi, "Altflandrische Bilder in Spanien und Portugal", in Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, vol. XXI, 1886, p. 139;
E. von Bodenhausen, Gerard David und seine Schule, Munich 1905, no. 55;
C. Justi, Miscellaneen aus drei Jahrhunderten Spanischen Kunstlebens, vol. I, Berlin 1908, p. 336;
M.J. Friedländer, "Ambrosius Benson als Bildnismaler", in Jahrbuch der Königlichen preussischen Kunstsammlungen, vol. XXXI, Berlin 1910, pp. 139ff.;
E. Haverkamp Begemann, "Enige Brugse werken in spanje uit de omgeving van G. David en A. Benson", in Oud Holland, vol. LXVII, no. IV, 1952, p. 240;
G. Marlier, Ambrosius Benson..., Damme 1957, pp. 159-61, reproduced plate XXXVII;
M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. XI, Leiden 1974, p. 94, no. 235, reproduced plate 159.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a fairly old restoration with much apparently superfluous overpaint freely brushed across faces and drapery as well as across the skies, which have been physically altered by carpentry, adding a few inches to the top of the central panel and altering the upper outline of the wings, adding the top right corner to the right above St. Anne and to the left over St Peter. The panels themselves appear to have been largely flat and stable over time, and are presumably in oak, with a layer of fairly recent dark paint over the back of the central panel, where there are several apparently comparatively secure joints and some quite effective woodwork presumably carried out with the strong incorporated additions. The Lamentation panel. The sky, as mentioned above, was widely retouched with the added curved upper strip, and may perhaps be rather thin. There is broad retouching over the more open areas of several of the faces, usually leaving the features largely untouched. The white highlights on the folds of the headdresses of the Madonna and of the Magdalen are also broadly overpainted, and there seems to be some wear beneath that of the Madonna, although all this overpaint is generally gratuitous and quite crude. The green robe of the Magdalen did once have a copper resinate glaze that was erroneously removed in mistake for darkened varnish, and this is now roughly retouched throughout, although much of her hand and the pot of ointment remain perfect, as does her arm on the right. The Madonna's blue drapery has many smaller retouchings and has darkened, but the figure of Joseph of Aramathea on the left is magnificently intact and shows the quality possibly remaining hidden beneath overpaint elsewhere. The figure of Christ has beautiful original paint visible for instance in the feet, with a certain amount of rough overpaint along the top of the legs and across the chest etc. The landscape is largely good apart from the distant hills that are overpainted near the horizon. The Wings. Donors with Saints. The sky as mentioned above has additions and is overpainted with some upper foliage, but otherwise the landscape is fine and well preserved. The faces are again broadly brushed over in places and the chest of the female donor is particularly widely repainted, with St Anne's headdress also overpainted along the crests of the folds. The underlying surface seems quite well preserved though in general, although it is hard to see into the darks at the moment. The reverse grisailles sides to the wings have naturally been even more widely reworked with layers of repaint frequently updating the background. The exterior of such an altarpiece was of course more exposed and there are a few old flaking losses or knocks, as well as broad overpaint across almost the entire background. The figures have had a similar patchy treatment to the flesh painting as elsewhere in the altarpiece. Essentially the sort of rough restoration the painting has undergone appears to have added layers in greater quantity mainly than subtracting them, although there is wear, but much beautiful paint still visible. 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."

This is, after his celebrated altarpiece of the Deposition in the church of Saint Michael in Segovia, one of Ambrosius Benson's most important surviving intact monumental triptychs, and the only one to our knowledge that is left in private hands.  In his monograph on Benson, George Marlier noted of it: "[His] extreme nobility commends him, a sober harmony, an unusual vigour, an expression of endless pain. It is the work of a painter with a classical temperament, who has scarcely been influenced by the mannerism of his time".¹

Carl Justi was the first to describe this triptych, then in the parish church of Nájera in the Rioja area of Spain.  He attributed it to an anonymous painter that he named The Master of Segovia, after Benson's magisterial altarpiece of the Deposition in the Church of Saint Michael in Segovia, and observed that the donors were "indiscutablement des Espagnols".  Justi assumed that the Segovia Master was a Castillian who had studied with Gerard David in Bruges, but subsequently Friedländer definitively connected all the paintings on Justi's list with Ambrosius Benson, on the basis of two works signed with the initials AB.²  Benson seems to have been of Lombard birth, but settled in Bruges by 1518, when he acquired Bruges citizenship.  In 1519 he was admitted to the painters' guild, and studied with David (as Justi had surmised).  Many of Benson's works ended up in Spain, and it is reasonable to assume that they were so destined.  Contacts between Bruges and Castille were strong in the first half of the 16th century, and in particular with Segovia, since both cities were centres of the cloth and wool trades.  It has often been noted that his Italian origins may have facilitated his dealings with Spanish clients, and furthermore that the religiosity of his works made them particularly appealing to them.  Whether this is true, or whether he adapted his paintings to suit his clients' wishes (as Friedländer suggested), it is certain that Benson had close contacts with known Spaniards in Bruges, of whom there were many at that time.  These included Lucas de Castro, from whom Benson bought a house partly in exchange for paintings, and Sancho de Santander, who was his patron.³  It was once thought that Benson maintained a workshop in Spain, but that idea has no support today.

Benson's style is well adapted to the production of large altarpieces.  These, especially those that found their way to Spain are monumental, making, as Friedländer noted, an impression of "massive grandeur".⁴  His  forms are bulky and three-dimensional and his pictures reveal none of the obsession with detail that characterized so many of his Flemish forbears and contemporaries.  Since only one of his altarpieces is dated, and they do not relate closely in style to his portraits which are naturally easier to date, we have only a hazy view of their chronology.  It is a reasonable supposition that he would have had to establish his reputation before receiving commissions for Spain, and the greater likelihood is that his Spanish altarpiece production such as this one dates from no earlier than circa 1530.  His important small triptych of Saint Anthony of Padua, also with grisaille outer wings, in Brussels has been dated circa 1532.⁵  A Lamentation in Bruges, Libertas Gallery, which has been dated circa 1540, is surely significantly later in date than the present work.⁶

It is not clear why this triptych went to the small Riojan town of Nájera, which is far from Segovia, and in particular why it hung in the parish church of Santa Cruz in the Plaza San Miguel rather than in the magnificent Benedictine monastery of Santa María la Real.  Since the church of Santa Cruz dates from the 17th century it cannot have been its original home, and may have been transferred from the monastery, perhaps when the latter was damaged during the Peninsular War, or when it was suppressed in 1835.  Nájera and its surrounding area was (and still is) a prosperous region of Spain, and is situated on the pilgrim route to Compostela, which explains its ecclesiastical importance.  By Benson's day there must however have been strong existing connections between Nájera and Bruges, since the so-called Nájera panels by Hans Memling which comprised with a missing central panel an altarpiece presumed to have been commissioned for Santa Maria Real, probably by the Abbot Don Pablo Martinez de Uruñuela (1485-1505), is likely to have been in situ by 1492.⁷  Moreover, the composition of the missing central panel of the Coronation of the Virgin from Memling's altarpiece, known in a presumed copy by the Master of the Saint Lucy Legend, is thought to have found an echo in the Assumption of the Virgin which forms the central panel of Ambrosius Benson's triptych in the sacristy of the important Church of Santa Maria in Navarrete, which is also on the Camino del Santiago in the Rioja region and is only about nine miles east of Nájera.⁸  The wings of the Navarrete triptych depict two male donors, both with identical coats-of-arms, and thus from the same family, but alas hitherto not identified.  The donor in the left wing is presented by Saint Peter, who is identical to the Saint Peter in the corresponding panel of the present work.   

Unfortunately there is nothing to indicate who the donors might be.  Similar, but not the same physiognomies as the donor are to be found in two portraits attributed to Benson of sitters identically posed – these may have been taken from dismembered altarpiece wings rather than painted as independent portraits.

1. See Marlier, under Literature, 1957, p. 161.  The original French text reads: [Il] se recommande par une extrême noblesse, une harmonie sobre, une vigeur peu commune, une expression de douleur continue.  C'est l'oeuvre d'un peintre de temperament classique, qui n'a guère été touché par le courant maniériste de son temps.
2. See Friedländer, under Literature, 1974, p. 59.
3. For further biographical information see D. Marechal, in M.P.J. Martens (ed.), Bruges and the Renaissance, exhibition catalogue, Bruges 1998, pp. 142-43.
4. Ibid.
5. See Martens, 1998, pp. 150-51, no. 58, reproduced.
6. Martens, op. cit., p. 154, no. 61, reproduced.
7. The three surviving panels are now in Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, inv. 778-780; see D. de Vos, Hans Memling.  The Complete Works, Antwerp 1994, pp. 289-93, no. 81, reproduced.  The Memling Nájera panels were removed from the monastic church and sold in 1886 to a Madrid art dealer.  They entered the Antwerp Gallery in 1895.
8. Idem, p. 292, reproduced fig. 81a (The Master of the Saint Lucy Legend, Coronation of the Virgin) and fig. 81c (Benson's Navarrete triptych).  See also Marlier, op. cit., pp. 164-68, reproduced plate XL, and Friedländer, 1972, p. 94, no. 233, reproduced plate 157, for the Navarrete triptych.