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.
The Three Kings – Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar – present gifts to the Christ Child in the ruins of a grand building overgrown with ivy and other weeds. The Virgin Mary sits on the edge of the manger, while her husband Saint Joseph comes down a staircase just visible to the left. A crowd of curious onlookers, some wearing turbans, peers through the arch on the right, and in the field behind Caspar’s head we see the ox and the donkey who shared the stable with Christ at the Nativity. Beyond, everyday life goes on in the suburbs of Bethlehem, the walls of which rise in the background.
This painting was most likely part of a polyptych showing the life of Christ painted by Gerard David in Antwerp after 1515; the Lamentation probably comes from the same altarpiece, perhaps from the wings. The letters A and W on the purse of Melchior’s belt perhaps stand for alpha and omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet and one of Christ’s titles.
David frequently reused figures and compositions – both his own and other artists' – and we can connect this work to other pictures attributed to him and his workshop. The composition is in some ways a development of his Adoration of about 1500 (Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels) but may also owe something to Jean Gossart’s great Adoration of the Kings. David often set his scenes in collapsing and overgrown buildings opening onto a landscape. Here, the crumbling wall at the back and parts of the palace are very close to those in a Nativity of about 1500–10 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). The houses behind Caspar and Melchior are so similar to those in two Nativities by David (Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest and Cleveland Museum of Art) that they must be taken from the same drawing.
Technical analysis can tell us much about how the painting was made. The underdrawing of this panel is freely executed – unlike that of the Lamentation – and was probably done by the artist himself rather than assistants. He also adapted things as he worked. There are many slight changes in the main figures, and the ox, donkey and Saint Joseph were added during the course of painting.
On the second brick from the left in the lower left corner we can make out a word: OUVVATER. This word has caused a lot of confusion, and has been understood as a kind of signature, as Oudewater near Gouda was David’s birthplace. But the letters are not original – they were scratched into the paint possibly around 1800.
