Title

Revenge of Herodias

Flandes, Juan de (Posible procedencia de los Países Bajos, ca. 1465 - Palencia, ca. 1519)

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Object history

This scene is one of the five that made up the triptych of the Baptism of Christ that presided over the altar on the north side of the lay brothers’ choir of the church of the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores, in Burgos. When, in 1659, new altarpieces were made for this space, the triptych of the Baptism of Christ had to be dismantled, but its panels were integrated into the new structure. In fact, when, in the 18th century, Antonio Ponz visited the Charterhouse, he pointed out that, in the altarpiece on the north side, there were still preserved 'sus antiguas pinturas, y son cinco' (its old paintings, and they are five). The scholar from Castellón was enthusiastic about the quality of this ensemble: 'Me alegrara que Ud. viese la hermosura y permanencia de los colores, lo acabado de cada cosa y la expresión tan grande de las figuras en aquel estilo que regularmente atribuimos a Lucas de Olanda [Lucas van Leyden] por la ignorancia en que se está de otros profesores que le superaron en su tiempo” (I would be happy if you could see the beauty and permanence of the colours, the finishing of everything and the great expression of the figures in that style that we regularly attribute to 'Lucas de Olanda' [Lucas van Leyden] because of the ignorance we have of other masters who surpassed him in his time). His interest in it led him to search for information about it in the Carthusian monastery's archives, where he recovered the following data: 'Aquí he encontrado el nombre de quien hizo estas pinturas por uno de los asientos del monasterio, y dice que el cuadro del Bautismo del coro de los legos lo empezó a pintar el Maestro Juan Flamenco en esta cartuja el año de 1496 y que lo acabó el de 1499, y que costó, sin contar la comida que le dieron, veinte y seis mil setecientos treinta y cinco maravedís' (Here I have found the name of the person who did these paintings in one of the entries of the monastery, and it says that the painting of the Baptism of the choir of the lay brothers was begun by 'Maestro Juan Flamenco' [Master John the Fleming] in this monastery in the year 1496 and that he finished it in 1499, and that it costed, without counting the food he was given, twenty-six thousand seven hundred and thirty-five maravedís).

These data have been the basis for a long and productive historiographical debate concerning, on the one hand, the location of the five paintings (which, like so many works of art of the Burgos Charterhouse, left, as we shall see, the place for which they had been created in the context of the War of Independence) and, on the other hand, the identification of the 'Master John the Fleming' who, according to the documentary evidence, had been their author. The second question was settled when, in 1979, Jozef de Coo and Nicole Reynaud identified him incontestably with Juan de Flandes, the Flemish painter who, from 1496, was in the service of Queen Isabella the Catholic (who, well known as the promoter of the works of completion of the Charterhouse of Miraflores, would have been the commissioner of this altarpiece): in fact, the realisation of the triptych of the Baptism of Christ in the Charterhouse strictly coincides in time with the making of the high altarpiece of the Charterhouse by the sculptor Gil de Siloe and the painter Diego de la Cruz). On the other hand, the first question could only be resolved when, at the beginning of the 21st century, the fifth and last panel of the ensemble was found in Belgrade (which also made it possible to establish a firm basis for its reconstruction, which until then had been the subject of various proposals). Of its five panels, only the central and main panel (Baptism of Christ) remains in Spain, and is currently in the collection of Juan Abelló, after passing through various private collections. The side panels are in museums in the United States (Birth of St John the Baptist), Serbia (Ecce Agnus Dei), Switzerland (Beheading of St John the Baptist) and Belgium (Revenge of Herodias). In 2010, an exhibition held at the Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp brought together the four wing panels, but there has never been an opportunity to reunite the whole set.

Although both documentary evidence and formal analysis point incontestably to Juan de Flandes as the author of the triptych of the Baptism of Christ in the choir of the lay brothers of the church of the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores, there is some debate about the possible participation of Michel Sittow, another Nordic painter in the service of Queen Isabella the Catholic (in this case, from 1492), who could have participated in the preparatory drawing and even in the first phases of execution, especially in the Baptism of Christ panel, but also in the Ecce Agnus Dei panel, as Weniger argues.

Sittow's possible participation in this ensemble and its close relationship with the courtly environment are linked to another question of interest related to this work: technical analyses of its support have been able to determine that the Baltic oak wood used for its manufacture comes from the same tree that was used for the manufacture of the support of the copy of the Miraflores triptych by Rogier van der Weyden that belonged to Isabella the Catholic (it is mentioned in the auction of her goods that took place in Toro in February 1505) and that ended up in the Royal Chapel of Granada, although one of its panels is currently in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Apparition of Christ to His Mother). Evidently, this copy could only have been made in the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores itself at the time when Juan de Flandes was working there, but scholars debate whether it is a work by Juan de Flandes or by Michel Sittow (and, in this case, since it is a copy, the individual stylistic features are blurred, making it difficult to ascribe).

Focusing again on the triptych of the Baptism of Christ, although the historical sources place it on the altar of the north side of the choir of the lay brothers of the church of the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores, Martens thinks that it was placed originally on the altar of the south side, based on the study of the light of this triptych and its pendant, the triptych of the Adoration of the Magi by the Master of the Legend of Saint Catherine, brought from the Low Countries in 1495.

Its panels are not mentioned among the works of the Charterhouse of Miraflores plundered by General Darmagnac in 1810, in the context of the War of Independence, but the interest of Fritz Mayer van den Bergh, the Antwerp collector who in 1899 acquired the Revenge of Herodias, in knowing the provenance of the works he was purchasing, allows us to confirm this: this panel, along with another one of the same set, had been acquired in the mid-19th century in Bordeaux by Tanneguy Duchâtel (1803-1867), Count Duchâtel, it is not clear whether from General Darmagnac himself, who died in 1855, or from the heirs of General Darmagnac. Count Duchâtel gave the Revenge of Herodias to his son-in-law Louis-Charles de La Trémoïlle (1838-1911), Duke of La Trémoïlle, who, in turn sold it for 3000 francs to Fritz Mayer van den Bergh on December 13, 1899, acting as intermediary a certain "C.te G. de Guizard". It was sold as the work of Lucas van Leyden, but the intermediary said it could be the work of Hans Memling. After the untimely death of the ridder Mayer van den Bergh in 1901, his mother, Henriëtte Mayer van den Bergh, took care of the construction of a building to house his collection, thus establishing the Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp in 1904, in which the piece under study was integrated. It was initially catalogued as an anonymous work, but in 1931 Friedrich Winkler identified it as the work of Juan de Flanes and related it to the Beheading of St John the Baptist in Geneva. According to technical examinations carried out on the work, at some point in its material history its back was planed.

Description

When Juan de Flandes painted the triptych of the Baptism of Christ in the Charterhouse of Miraflores between 1496 and 1499, the triptych of the Adoration of the Magi by the Master of the Legend of Saint Catherine, which presided over the other altar of the lay brothers’ choir, was already there, so Juan de Flandes followed the typological model of the latter: a central panel housing a single scene (in this case, the Baptism of Christ) flanked by side panels housing two superimposed scenes. This model is not very common in Early Netherlandish painting, although its prestigious reference is the triptych of the Last Supper by Dirk Bouts in the Sint-Pieterskerk in Louvain. While in the triptych of the Master of the Legend of Saint Catherine the scenes of the wings are painted on a single panel, on the back of which are depicted large figures in grisaille, in the triptych of Juan de Flandes the scenes of the wings are painted on independent panels that would have been fitted into a mount and on the back of which a marble imitation was painted (which, until the recent identification of all the panels and their exhaustive technical analysis, made it difficult to determine the exact position of each panel in the ensemble).

The Revenge of Herodias would be the lower panel of the right wing and, after the dismantling of the triptych and the reuse of its panels in the altarpiece of 1659, it would have been cut down to accommodate it in the attic of the new structure. Although this episode is traditionally identified as the Feast of Herod, it does not depict the banquet in which Salome dazzles her stepfather Herod to the point of asking him, at the request of her mother Herodias, for the death of St John the Baptist, but the moment after the beheading of St John the Baptist in which Salome offers the head of the Precursor to Herodias, who, as De Coo observed, prepares to pierce with a knife the tongue of the one who had reproached Herod's relationship with the woman who had been his brother's wife. For this reason, Juan de Flandes represents a large desolate room, in which only Salome is present, who, in strict profile, dominates the scene offering her mother with both hands the tray on which is the horrid representation of the head of St John the Baptist, and, on the right, Herod and Herodias, seated at a table devoid of any service or food. On the threshold of the door at the back left, a cupbearer and a macebearer contemplate the macabre scene from the semi-darkness.

Locations

• 1499 - 1810

  monastery

  Miraflores Charterhouse, Burgos (Spain)

• 1810 - Mid XIX^th c.

  plunder

  Jean-Barthélemy Darmagnac, Burdeos (France)

• Mid XIX^th c. - Third quarter of the XIX^th c.

  private collection

  Tanneguy Duchâtel, Duchâtel Count, Paris (France) *

• Third quarter of the XIX^th c. - 1899

  private collection

  Louis-Charles de La Trémoille, Paris (France) *

• 1899 - 1904

  private collection

  Fritz Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp (Belgium) *

• 1904 - present

  museum

  Museum Fritz Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp (Belgium)