Gerard David, 'Adoration of the Kings', about 1515
About the work
Overview
The Three Kings – Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar – present gifts to the Christ Child in the ruins of a grand building. The Virgin Mary sits on the edge of the manger while Saint Joseph, her husband, comes down a staircase just visible to the left. A crowd of curious onlookers, some wearing turbans, peer through the arch on the right. In the field behind Caspar’s head we can see an ox and a donkey, while everyday life goes on in the street of the town behind.
This painting was perhaps once part of a polyptych (a multi-panelled altarpiece) showing the life of Christ painted by Gerard David in Antwerp after 1515. It is likely that a similarly sized panel, the Lamentation, comes from the same complex.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Adoration of the Kings
- Artist
- Gerard David
- Artist dates
- active 1484; died 1523
- Part of the series
- Two Panels from an Altarpiece
- Date made
- about 1515
- Medium and support
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- 60 × 59.2 cm
- Inscription summary
- Inscribed
- Acquisition credit
- Bequeathed by Mrs Joseph H. Green, 1880
- Inventory number
- NG1079
- Location
- Room 53
- Collection
- Main Collection
- Previous owners
- Frame
- 20th-century Replica Frame
Provenance
On the reverse is a pink paper inscribed ‘King 157’. Similar papers bearing the same inscription are found on the reverses of NG 1078 and NG 1081. ‘King’ was perhaps Frederick Benjamin King, whose pictures, sold by his assignees at Christie’s on 5 June 1830, included as lot 82 ‘J. de Maubeuge. The Adoration of the Magi’, bought for £4 by Ruttley(?). This was perhaps NG 1079, which was first certainly recorded in 1831, when it was in the collection of Karl Aders (1780–1846), a German merchant living in London. It was auctioned with the rest of the Aders collection at Foster’s on 1 August 1835 (no. 103). Sold to Dr Willis, it passed to the surgeon Joseph Henry Green (1791–1863); it was no. 4 in a list of his pictures drawn up after his death. His collection passed to his widow, Anne Eliza (Hammond), who died in 1879. By her will of 21 December 1865, she bequeathed to the National Gallery ‘all my pictures painted by Dutch or Flemish Artists’. Her bequest was received in 1880.
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Lorne Campbell, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Schools’, London 1998; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Exhibition history
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2010Jan Gossaert's RenaissanceThe National Gallery (London)23 February 2011 - 30 May 2011
Bibliography
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1833J.D. Passavant, Kunstreise durch England und Belgien, Frankfurt am Main 1833
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1835E. Foster & Son, A Catalogue of the Very Rare Collection of Italian, Ancient German, Dutch and Flemish Pictures: The Property of Charles Aders, Esq., London, 1 August 1835
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1841J.D. Passavant, 'Beiträge zur Kenntniß der alten Malerschulen in Deutschland vom 13ten bis in das 16te Jahrhundert', Kunstblatt, XXII, 1841
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1854G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], vol. 2, trans. E. Eastlake, London 1854
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1857J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, The Early Flemish Painters: Notices of Their Lives and Works, London 1857
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1863W.H.J. Weale, 'Gerard David', Le Beffroi, I, 1863, pp. 223-34
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1865A. Michiels, Histoire de la peinture flamande depuis ses débuts jusqu'en 1864, Paris 1865
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1866W.H.J. Weale, 'Gerard David II: Sa vie et ses œuvres authentiques', Gazette des beaux-arts, XXI, 1866, pp. 489-501
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1881National Gallery, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery: Foreign Schools, London 1881
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1887W. Armstrong, 'Notes on the National Gallery', The Guardian, 1887
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1902G.H. de Loo, Exposition de tableaux flamands des XIVe, XVe et XVIe siècles: Catalogue critique, précédé d'une introduction sur 'identité de certains maîtres anonymes, Ghent 1902
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1905S. Reinach, Répertoire de peintres du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance (1250-1580), 4 vols, Paris 1905
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1920National Gallery, National Gallery: Catalogue of the Pictures at Trafalgar Square, London 1920
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1921W.M. Conway, The van Eycks and Their Followers, London 1921
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1924M.J. Friedländer, Die altniederländische Malerei, 14 vols, Berlin 1924
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1929F. Dülberg, Niederländische Malerei der Spätgotik und Renaissance, Berlin 1929
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1945Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: Early Netherlandish School, London 1945
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1953M. Davies, The National Gallery, London, Les Primitifs flamands. I, Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pay-Bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle 3, 2 vols, Antwerp 1953
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1955Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: Early Netherlandish School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1955
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1967M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, eds N. Veronée-Verhaegen and H. Pauwels, trans. H. Norden, 14 vols, Leiden 1967
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1968C.D. Cuttler, Northern Painting from Pucelle to Bruegel: Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, New York 1968
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1973The National Gallery, The National Gallery: January 1971 - December 1972, London 1973
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1975J.M. Collier, Linear Perspective in Flemish Painting and the Art of Petrus Christus and Dieric Bouts, Phd Thesis, Michigan University 1975
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1975D.G. Scillia, Gerard David and Manuscript Illumination in the Lowlands, Phd Thesis, Case Western Reserve University 1975
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1980E.J. Mundy, 'A Preparatory Sketch for Gerard David's Justice of Cambyses Panels in Bruges', The Burlington Magazine, CXXII, 1980, pp. 35-6
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1987Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Early Netherlandish School, 3rd edn, London 1987
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1987D. de Vos, 'Gerard David', in Nationaal biografisch woordenboek, Brussels 1987, vol. 12
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1998Campbell, Lorne, National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings, London 1998
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
About this record
If you know more about this work or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
About the series: Two Panels from an Altarpiece
Gerard David, 'Lamentation', 1515-23
Overview
These two paintings – the Adoration of the Magi and the Lamentation – most likely come from a polyptych (an altarpiece made up of several panels) painted by Gerard David and his assistants in the workshop he set up in Antwerp in 1515. They are roughly the same size and the figures are painted on the same scale, and have been together since at least the nineteenth century. They may have come from a lost altarpiece showing scenes from the life of Christ.
Works in the series
Christ’s body has just been brought down from the Cross and is being prepared for burial – the square door to his tomb is visible in the rock face on the right. His mother embraces him tenderly, while Mary Magdalene anoints his feet. Another woman washes his wounds with water from a brass basin w...
The Three Kings – Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar – present gifts to the Christ Child in the ruins of a grand building. The Virgin Mary sits on the edge of the manger while Saint Joseph, her husband, comes down a staircase just visible to the left. A crowd of curious onlookers, some wearing turban...
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