RKD STUDIES

In 1956, Poland’s most precious work of art, which had been housed in Gdańsk for almost 500 years, returned from the Soviet Union: the Triptych of the Last Judgement by Hans Memling¹ – one of two monumental works by the master painter from Bruges [1]. The history of its acquisition is quite unusual. Originally commissioned by Angelo Tani, the representative of the Medici bank in Bruges and destined for his family chapel in the church of Badia Fiesolana near Florence, the triptych was en route from the Netherlands to Italy on the galleon ‘San Matteo’ in 1473. The ship was captured by a Gdańsk pirate, Paul Benecke, and the altarpiece unexpectedly found its way to his home town, where it was placed in the church of Our Lady [2]. Despite the protests and complaints of the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold and Pope Sixtus IV, the triptych remained in Gdańsk. It was removed twice: by Napoleon in 1807 (to be returned in 1816), and during the Second World War, when the Germans took it to Thuringia for safety. Found there by the Red Army, it was taken to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad).

Apart from this breathtaking work there are not many Flemish Primitives in Poland: a group of small devotional pictures from the workshops of Dieric and Aelbert Bouts in Kraków and Warsaw [3-5]; a Passion altarpiece with wings painted in the workshop of Colijn de Coter, also in Warsaw [6-7]; and a splendid composition showing the Martyrdom of Saint Crispin and Crispinian from the Wilanów collection [8], rendered with a rare epic power of narration. This work, by Aert van den Bossche, is the central panel of a triptych, the right wing of which – separated and transferred to canvas – is preserved in the Museum van de Stad in Brussels (averses) and in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow (reverses).²

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and studio of Albrecht Bouts Albrecht Bouts
The Head of Saint John the Baptist (Mt 14, 6–12; Mk 6, 21–29), after 1500
Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, inv./cat.nr. M.Ob.845 MNW

Poznań Museum owns an extremely interesting big panel of the Crucifixion dated to the 2nd half of 15th century with motives bearing evident influence of both Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin [9].³ The Lamentation Triptych by Jean Bellegambe from ca 1515–1520 [10] (considered by Robert Genaille in 1963 the earliest work by this Douai painter from c. 1495) and a Triptych of the Immaculate Conception by a painter from the circle of Adriaen Isenbrant [11], in spite of their late dating, still belong to the epoch of early Netherlandish painting.⁴

The Northern Renaissance, or ‘Antwerp Mannerism’, is represented by objects such as the painted panels of the St. Reinhold Altarpiece, an early masterpiece by Joos van Cleve, which is in Warsaw [12]. This work features a self-portrait of the young artist as St. Reinhold in the reverse of the wings [13].⁵ The Virgin with Child and a Lamb by Quinten Massijs in Poznań⁶ [14] illustrates the artist’s effort to combine the local Netherlandish tradition with the Italian inspirations of Leonardo da Vinci. A similar tendency can be found in Venus and Cupid [15], a war loss recovered for the Jagiellonian University Museum in Kraków in 1984, painted by the former’s son, Jan Massijs, who seeks to unite the influence of Titian and the School of Fontainebleau.⁷ Italianate Mannerism in its most dramatic form is present in the Ecce Homo Triptych, now in Warsaw, one of the finest works by Maarten van Heemskerck [16],⁸ and Jan Sanders van Hemessen’s Holy Family in Wawel Royal Castle, Kraków [17].⁹

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and Anoniem and Anonymous and studio of Joos van Cleve Joos van Cleve
The Presentation in the Temple, Ecce Homo (left wing); The Baptism of Christ, The Last Supper, Christ before Pilate, The carrying of the Cross (centre); The Agony in the Garden, The Crucifixion (right wing); Man of Sorrows with saints (predella), 1515-1516
Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, inv./cat.nr. M.Ob.2190 MNW

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Joos van Cleve
Saint Reinhold, self-portrait of Joos van Cleve, 1515-1516
Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, inv./cat.nr. M.Ob.2190 MNW

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Quinten Massijs (I)
Madonna and Child with a lamb against a landscape, c. 1520
Poznań, Muzeum Narodowe w Poznaniu, inv./cat.nr. MNP FR 441

Worth mentioning are also: one of the versions of the Ecce Homo by a follower of Juan de Flandes in the Catholic University of Lublin [18],¹⁰ an altar painting by Ambrosius Francken Christ and the Children in the parish church at Radomsko [19]¹¹ and Bernaert de Rijckere’s Finding of Moses – Allegorical Family Portrait in Warsaw [20].¹² A very fine version of the Saint John the Baptist Preaching by Pieter Brueghel the Younger is in the collection of the National Museum in Kraków [21].¹³

The art of portraiture in the 16th century is represented by such works as the portrait in profile of Isabel von Habsburg, the Queen of Danes attributed to the Master of the Legend of Mary Magdalen [22], Jan Mostaert’s Portrait of a Courtier [23] in the Princes Czartoryski Museum in Kraków ¹⁴ as well as the beautiful likeness of Isabel of Portugal by the little-known painter William (or Guillim) Scrots in Poznań [24].¹⁵

Two charming paintings by Master of the Female Half-Lengths: Lady at the Virginal in Poznań [25] and a Lady Writing a Letter in Kraków (Czartoryski Museum) [26] make a link to the genre painting at the time of its dawn.¹⁶ The late Renaissance epoch is closed with an important painting by Pieter Aertsen in Warsaw, dating from the very last year of his life and showing, in the form of a frieze, scenes illustrating the seven works of Christian mercy [27]. Rendered as a genre piece, in the setting of a town square laid out according to the models in Sebastiano Serlio’s architectural treatise, the painting is a rarity.¹⁷

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Pieter Brueghel (II) after Pieter Bruegel (I)
The Sermon of Saint John the Baptist, after 1566
Kraków, Muzeum Narodowe w Krakowie, inv./cat.nr. XII-A-619