Gaspar de Crayer Antwerp 1584 - 1669 Ghent

It has been suggested that the painting might have belonged to the Count of Mailly-Nesle, Marquis de Rubempre, Prince d'Orange who left it to his only daughter Adelheid who married Duke Louis d'Arenberg.

 

R. Marggraff, Katalog der älteren königlichen Pinakothek zu München, Munich 1872, p. 273, cat.no. 1395 (as Gaspard de Crayer)

The actual painting has less contrast in the colours than the catalogue illustration suggests. The canvas has a relining. The original canvas consists of two pieces, joined horizontally and the seam is visible to the front running through the centre. Two horizontal tears of approx. 10 cm are running from the left edge over the column. Spots of paint losses are visible along the right and bottom edge, a spot in the back of Dorothea's hair and small vertical strips of paint loss in the area of the basket with flowers. The paint surface is at some places thin and abraded, for example in the area of Saint Dorothea's shoulder and low neckline, the top of her head; the angel's hair and wings, and in the balusters to the right. Some parts are really nicely preserved such as most of Dorothea's face and her lush dress and garments. Discoloured retouchings are visible in the red drapery, and in the architectural elements to the left. The paint surface shows a dense and coarse craquelure pattern. The painting is under a layer of surface dirt and dust and the varnish has deteriorated. In short: the painting needs conservation treatment. Inspection under UV-light confirms the abovementioned retouchings in the red drapery and upper right and reveals several filled an retouched damages scattered throughout as well as retouched craquelure, e.g. in the area of the basket of flowers and in the lower foreground. Offered unframed. (JD)
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The female figure in this painting can be identified with Saint Dorothea of Caesarea, a virgin martyr whose life is sparsely documented. She was however included in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, the most influential of medieval lists of martyrs. She should not be confused with Dorothea of Alexandria.

The story of Dorothea accounts that when she was forced to take a husband, she refused since she considered Jesus Christ as her only bridegroom. For this act she was condemned to death. On her way to her execution, a certain Theophilus approached her and said in mockery: "Bride of Christ, send me some fruits from your bridegroom's garden".¹ After her beheading, a child presented Theophilus with a basket of roses and apples which made him convert to Christianity himself.
Dorothea is usually depicted with a basket of roses and apples brought to her by an angel, as in this picture. She is mostly venerated in Northern Europe and consequently more frequently depicted in the art of the Low Countries. She belongs to the Quattor Virgines Capitales, the four principal virgin martyrs, together with the saints Barbara, Margaret of Antioch and Catherine of Alexandria. 

Gaspar de Crayer was a prolific artist who painted almost exclusively religious works, first for the archducal court and churches in Brussels, later expanded to many churches and monasteries all over Flanders. Although De Crayer is often seen as a close follower of Rubens, his artistic development shows that he was influenced as much as by Van Dyck, and his style underwent changes throughout his career.²  
De Crayer was active at the time that the influence of the Counter-Reformation was at its peak, stimulating the production of many fresh works that propagate the new pictorial ideas of the Catholic Reform in the Southern Netherlands.

The present painting is typical for De Crayer's work of the 1640s that show calm and balanced compositional schemes in which the artist applied a much more restrained colouring and less abrupt transitions than in his vibrant and dynamic compositions of the 1630s. It is also in this decade that the Crayer's work demonstrates a growing interest in Rubens' late works, which is demonstrated by the even greater monumentality and volume of his figures.³ The Dorothea exemplifies well De Crayer's new pictorial vision.

Only one other painting by the artist of the same subject is recorded in Vlieghe. This is the altarpiece depicting the Martyrdom of Saint Dorothea which was mentioned in the catalogue of the Clemens sale on 2 June 1788 in Ghent. We only know its design from a preliminary drawing in the Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent.⁴ The altarpiece, now lost, was painted for the convent church of the Discalced Carmelites in Brussels.⁵

We are grateful to Prof. Dr. Hans Vlieghe for attributing the painting to Caspar de Crayer on the basis of a photograph. Vlieghe dates the painting to the 1640s.


1. Patron Saints Index (online source): Saint Dorothea of Caesarea
2. See further H. Vlieghe, Gaspar de Crayer, Sa vie et ses oeuvres, 2 vols, Brussels, 1972
3. Idem, vol. I, pp. 68-70
4. Idem, vol. I, pp. 239-40, cat. no. A225, reproduced vol. II, fig. 210.
5. Idem, vol. I, pp. 240-41, cat. no. A226.