Full title | Adoration of the Kings |
---|---|
Artist | Gerard David |
Artist dates | active 1484; died 1523 |
Series | Two Panels from an Altarpiece |
Date made | about 1515 |
Medium and support | Oil on oak |
Dimensions | 60 x 59.2 cm |
Inscription summary | Inscribed |
Acquisition credit | Bequeathed by Mrs Joseph H. Green, 1880 |
Inventory number | NG1079 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
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.
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Two Panels from an Altarpiece
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.
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.
Although we don‘t have any written evidence linking these paintings, they are roughly the same size, the figures are painted on the same scale and the horizon is at the same level in both. They have been together since at least the nineteenth century. The Lamentation is about 3 cm taller and wider than the Adoration of the Magi, and there are differences in how the panels are constructed, but this doesn’t rule out their being from the same series. They probably came from a lost altarpiece showing scenes from the life of Christ. The backs of both have been planed down; it is possible that they were once painted and intended to fold over a central panel. Although we don‘t know where the altarpiece was, it was likely to have been in Antwerp, where the Adoration was probably copied in the mid-sixteenth century.
We can reconstruct the history of these paintings from the early nineteenth century onwards. Both have pink papers on the back inscribed ’King‘. This might be Frederick Benjamin King, a grocer and sugar refiner who lived in Princes Square in the East End of London and who went bankrupt in 1829. They were first recorded in the collection of the German merchant Charles Aders, who put together one of the most significant collections of so-called ’primitives‘ – early Netherlandish and Italian artists – in England, also including Portrait of a Man (Jan van Winckele?) and The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor.
By 1831 Aders’ financial affairs were in chaos and in 1832 he tried to sell his paintings to the National Gallery. Negotiations came to nothing and the works by David were eventually purchased by the eminent surgeon Joseph Henry Green, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s literary executor. They were bequeathed to the Gallery by Green’s widow Anne Eliza in 1880, in accordance with his wishes.


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