Title

Ecce Agnus Dei

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

Generic classification

Object

Date

Century

Cultural context / style

Dimensions

Material

Technique

Iconography / Theme

Provenance

Current location

Inventory Number in Current Collection

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. This news confirms that the ensemble, which, as shown by the measurements of its panels (consistent with those of the 1659 altarpiece in which they were relocated), had originally belonged to the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores, was plundered by General Darmagnac.

The Ecce Agnus Dei was the last panel of the group to be identified. Susan Urbach, who became aware of it through old photographs, made it known in 2001, recognising it as a work by Juan de Flandes and as part of the triptych of the Baptism of Christ of the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores. Thanks to her publication, it was identified in the collections of the Narodni Muzej in Belgrade in 2003. The fact that on its reverse side there is an annotation with the number 54 links its material history to that of the Beheading of St John the Baptist in Geneva, on whose reverse side there is an annotation with the number 53, which would indicate that the two panels were part of the same sale, which, unfortunately, has not been identified. General Darmagnac must have disposed of them at an early date, but, unlike the Beheading of St John the Baptist in Geneva, about which news are known since the first half of the 19th century, the Ecce Agnus Dei of Belgrade is not known until the threshold of the 20th, when it was in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

By 1900 it was owned by Arthur Löfkovits (1863-1935), a Hungarian Jewish jeweler from Nagyvárad (present-day Oradea, Romania) who had settled in Debrecen, Hungary, and was a passionate collector. In 1902, he gave part of his collection to this city to enable the foundation of a municipal museum / Városi Múzeum (the cession was made partly as a donation and partly as a deposit). The museum was initially housed in the rooms of an educational institution until 1905, when Löfkovits himself purchased a building to house it. That same year, on the occasion of the opening of the new headquarters of the institution, Löfkovits deposited new works, among which, apparently, was the painting that interests us here (the document is not sufficiently explicit and, on the other hand, it seems that Löfkovits deposited objects that he later withdrew). In any case, its early presence in the municipal museum is attested by photographic testimonies. In 1920, the businessman Frigyes Déri (1852-1924) donated his collection to the city of Debrecen, which immediately undertook the construction of a building to house the new municipal museum, which, on the occasion of its opening in 1930, was renamed Déri Múzeum (to the detriment of the recognition of Löfkovits' contribution). In the guide of the relocated museum published that year, the painting we are interested in here is clearly mentioned. In 1940 the municipal government of Debrecen agreed to return a number of objects that had once been deposited in the municipal museum by Löfkovits to his daughter Josefa. The restitution became effective in 1948. By then, the family had emigrated to the United States. We are not sure that the panel by Juan de Flandes, which still had no attribution of any kind, ever crossed the Atlantic, as it would undoubtedly have found a better commercial outlet in the United States. All we know is that it was acquired by the Narodni Muzej in Belgrade in 1963 with the mediation of a certain Italo di Franco, a member of the Italian embassy in Belgrade. Thanks to the article published by Urbach in 2001, the panel could be identified in 2003.

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 Ecce Agnus Dei would be the lower panel of the left wing. After the dismantling of the triptych and the reuse of its panels in the 1659 altarpiece, it is possible that it was relocated in the compartment of the reverse of the attic, facing the monks' choir, although we are not aware that this has been verified by comparing the measurements. Anyway, Ponz claimed to have seen the five panels of the primitive altarpiece, and this compartment would be the only one in which the Ecce Agnus Dei could have found a place. This panel represents the ministry of St John the Baptist: specifically, the passage narrated in Johnn 1:29 in which the Precursor, upon seeing Christ pass by, points him out to his disciples and says 'Behold the Lamb of God' (Ecce Agnus Dei in Latin) to show his superiority. The composition is dominated by the solemn figure of St John the Baptist, who, located in the centre, points with the index finger of his right hand to Christ, represented behind him in the background. A clear contrast is established between the left half of the painting, populated by the disciples of St John the Baptist who, against a rocky background, reverently receive his announcement, and the right half of the painting, dominated by an open landscape in the background of which the Jordan River can be seen, in which stands the self-absorbed figure of Christ, who seems to be walking towards the river and who, in fact, is rolling up his tunic as if preparing to enter the water, thus paving the way towards the next episode of the triptych: the Baptism of Christ of the central and titular panel. It is, to say the least, striking the contrast between the physical type of Christ in this panel and in the subsequent one in which his baptism is represented: here he is a mature man, with a bushy beard and short hair, while in the following scene he is a young man, with a beard barely grown beyond his goatee and long hair.

Locations

• 1499 - 1810

  monastery

  Miraflores Charterhouse, Burgos (Spain)

• 1810

  plunder

  Jean-Barthélemy Darmagnac, Burdeos (France)

• 1905

  private collection

  Arthur Löfkovits, Debrecen (Hungary) *

• 1905 - 1948

  museum

  Városi Múzeum / Déri Múzeum, Debrecen (Hungary)

• 1948

  private collection

  Heirs of Arthur Löfkovits, New York (United States) *

• 1963 - present

  museum

  Narodni muzej Srbije, Belgrado (Serbia)