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Lot Essay
The historian Max J. Friedländer was the first to identify this Adoration of the Magi as a work by the great Netherlandish painter Hieronymous Bosch. Friedländer had encountered the painting when it was on the European art market, and quickly associated it with two smaller panel fragments that he had previously attributed to Bosch in a 1914 lecture in Berlin, where he described them as `two small altarpiece wings…with princely horsemen on one side and shepherds on the other, which belong to a so far unidentified Adoration’ (quoted in BRCP, p. 422). On the advice of Bernard Berenson, the American lawyer John G. Johnson bought the two wing fragments from the art dealer Julius Böhler in Munich in 1915, and two years later donated them along with the rest of his collection to the city of Philadelphia, where they remain and are exhibited today as `Attributed to Hieronymus Bosch’ (Philadelphia Museum of Art; fig. 1). Friedländer published all three panels as `probably original’ in his Die Altniederländische Malerei (loc. cit.), and they were subsequently temporarily reunited in a 1939 exhibition in Worcester and Philadelphia with an unqualified attribution to the master (loc. cit.). Soon after, the present panel entered a private collection and while the triptych’s wings have been extensively published with attributions ranging from autograph, to works by followers of Bosch (see BRCP, p. 424), the Adoration of the Magi has fell out of the literature and was seldom seen until its recent emergence.
This panel represents the critical moment in the Epiphany, when three Magi arrive with gifts of frankincense, myrrh and gold, which they present to the newborn Christ Child, thus recognizing his divinity. In Bosch’s time, these mystical figures were associated both with the three ages of mankind and the three continents of the Christian world, with Europe in the guise of the elder Magus, Asia as the mature king, and Africa as the youth. This last figure wears a robe that is decorated with one of the most intriguing elements of the composition. Two Old Testament scenes are embroidered into the fabric of his sleeve, showing Moses presenting the Tablets of the Law, below which the Dance around the Golden Calf (Exodus 32), contrasting faith and idolatry in the fantastical, monstrous imagery that one associates with Bosch’s Hell scenes. Ultimately, as Larry Silver has noted, `this subject forces an attentive, pious viewer to reflect on the very act of seeing and believing, just as the three Magi had to perceive divinity even when hidden within the form of the humble flesh of the infant Christ Child’ (op. cit., p. 5).
An idea of what the triptych would have originally looked like before its wings were removed and cut down to their present, fragmentary state, can be gleaned by a later copy, that was produced by a follower of Bosch sometime after 1550 and is now in the Het Noordbrabants Museum, ‘s-Hertogenbosch (BRCP, p. 425, fig. 26.2). In the s’Hertogenbosch triptych, a continuous background unites the three panels. Its central Adoration panel largely replicates the composition of the present work, with the exception of a small detail visible in the background beneath its central arch, where Saint Joseph sits in a deeply recessed, darkened room, drying Christ’s swaddling before a fireplace. The present version includes a stable on the opposite side of the hearth, in which an ox and ass are just visible next to a sarcophagus-shaped trough. This compositional element is completely absent in the s’Hertogenbosch painting. This omission is only logical, since the animals appear in the triptych’s left wing, beneath the arcade behind the two shepherds. Critically, in the present work, the ox and ass were left in reserve and likely never painted, suggesting that the artist changed the composition as he created it, shifting them from the crowded central panel to the left wing instead. Indeed, these animals were painted directly over the finished background in the Philadelphia panel, further suggesting that they were not originally planned. The ox and ass similarly appear in a third, cut-down version of the Adoration of the Magi in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne (BRCP, p. 424), which accordingly may be excluded as a possible companion to the Philadelphia wings, but raises the possibility that the painter of the present Adoration began with an existing model and adapted it during the painting process into a triptych, which was then copied either by Bosch’s workshop or later followers.
Bosch’s most celebrated treatment of the Epiphany is his Adoration of the Magi triptych (Prado, Madrid), which was commissioned by the Antwerp couple Peeter Scheyve and Agnes de Gramme around 1495-97. The composition was reproduced on several occasions by his workshop and later followers, included variations in the Erasmushuis, Anderlecht and one belonging to the National Trust, Upton House, Warwichshire (see figs. 26.3 and 26.14-15). Larry Silver proposes that the present panel and its associated wings in Philadelphia should be dated earlier than the Madrid triptych, due to the numerous pentiments and changes in their underdrawings (op. cit., p. 6). At the very least, these changes prove their primacy over the slavish copy in s’Hertogenbosch. As infrared-reflectography clearly reveals (fig. 2), the painter of the present panel originally planned to portray the kneeling Magus with a beard, which was eventually omitted and does not appear in any of the subsequent versions. Extensive underdawing is also visible for the red curtain and the cape of the kneeling Magus, as well as the standing Magus at right, who was initially planned to be in profile view with a beard, but was then changed to three-quarter view without facial hair. Silver notes that `[s]uch preparatory composition could, of course, also indicate detailed instructions for workshop execution by skilled assistants, but at the very least it suggests a direct involvement by Bosch himself in the production process’ (op. cit., p. 10). Further alterations to the composition are visible: the dog in the Philadelphia panel was painted over the legs of the two shepherds and the horses in the retinue of the Magi panel were changed from the underdrawing and preliminary paint layers, changes that once again are later copied in the ‘s-Hertogenbosch version. In 2016, the Bosch Research and Conservation Project noted that dendrochronological analysis reveals that the present panel could have been painted from 1501 onwards and more likely from 1503 (loc. cit.). Based on the Renaissance-style ornamentation on the ruined classical arch, they concluded that it would be unlikely to have been painted earlier than 1515-20. It is opinion of the BRCP that present panel and the Philadelphia fragments originally belonged to the same triptych, datable to c. 1515-35, but that neither the paintings nor their underdrawings are by the same hand (p. 427). Silver, however, concludes `All of the under-drawing and shifts of original composition point to the originality of this newly-discovered version, and the underdrawings at least suggest the work of Bosch himself, even if some surface elements indicate workshop execution (not to mention weaker restoration)’ (op. cit., p. 10).
This panel represents the critical moment in the Epiphany, when three Magi arrive with gifts of frankincense, myrrh and gold, which they present to the newborn Christ Child, thus recognizing his divinity. In Bosch’s time, these mystical figures were associated both with the three ages of mankind and the three continents of the Christian world, with Europe in the guise of the elder Magus, Asia as the mature king, and Africa as the youth. This last figure wears a robe that is decorated with one of the most intriguing elements of the composition. Two Old Testament scenes are embroidered into the fabric of his sleeve, showing Moses presenting the Tablets of the Law, below which the Dance around the Golden Calf (Exodus 32), contrasting faith and idolatry in the fantastical, monstrous imagery that one associates with Bosch’s Hell scenes. Ultimately, as Larry Silver has noted, `this subject forces an attentive, pious viewer to reflect on the very act of seeing and believing, just as the three Magi had to perceive divinity even when hidden within the form of the humble flesh of the infant Christ Child’ (op. cit., p. 5).
An idea of what the triptych would have originally looked like before its wings were removed and cut down to their present, fragmentary state, can be gleaned by a later copy, that was produced by a follower of Bosch sometime after 1550 and is now in the Het Noordbrabants Museum, ‘s-Hertogenbosch (BRCP, p. 425, fig. 26.2). In the s’Hertogenbosch triptych, a continuous background unites the three panels. Its central Adoration panel largely replicates the composition of the present work, with the exception of a small detail visible in the background beneath its central arch, where Saint Joseph sits in a deeply recessed, darkened room, drying Christ’s swaddling before a fireplace. The present version includes a stable on the opposite side of the hearth, in which an ox and ass are just visible next to a sarcophagus-shaped trough. This compositional element is completely absent in the s’Hertogenbosch painting. This omission is only logical, since the animals appear in the triptych’s left wing, beneath the arcade behind the two shepherds. Critically, in the present work, the ox and ass were left in reserve and likely never painted, suggesting that the artist changed the composition as he created it, shifting them from the crowded central panel to the left wing instead. Indeed, these animals were painted directly over the finished background in the Philadelphia panel, further suggesting that they were not originally planned. The ox and ass similarly appear in a third, cut-down version of the Adoration of the Magi in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne (BRCP, p. 424), which accordingly may be excluded as a possible companion to the Philadelphia wings, but raises the possibility that the painter of the present Adoration began with an existing model and adapted it during the painting process into a triptych, which was then copied either by Bosch’s workshop or later followers.
Bosch’s most celebrated treatment of the Epiphany is his Adoration of the Magi triptych (Prado, Madrid), which was commissioned by the Antwerp couple Peeter Scheyve and Agnes de Gramme around 1495-97. The composition was reproduced on several occasions by his workshop and later followers, included variations in the Erasmushuis, Anderlecht and one belonging to the National Trust, Upton House, Warwichshire (see figs. 26.3 and 26.14-15). Larry Silver proposes that the present panel and its associated wings in Philadelphia should be dated earlier than the Madrid triptych, due to the numerous pentiments and changes in their underdrawings (op. cit., p. 6). At the very least, these changes prove their primacy over the slavish copy in s’Hertogenbosch. As infrared-reflectography clearly reveals (fig. 2), the painter of the present panel originally planned to portray the kneeling Magus with a beard, which was eventually omitted and does not appear in any of the subsequent versions. Extensive underdawing is also visible for the red curtain and the cape of the kneeling Magus, as well as the standing Magus at right, who was initially planned to be in profile view with a beard, but was then changed to three-quarter view without facial hair. Silver notes that `[s]uch preparatory composition could, of course, also indicate detailed instructions for workshop execution by skilled assistants, but at the very least it suggests a direct involvement by Bosch himself in the production process’ (op. cit., p. 10). Further alterations to the composition are visible: the dog in the Philadelphia panel was painted over the legs of the two shepherds and the horses in the retinue of the Magi panel were changed from the underdrawing and preliminary paint layers, changes that once again are later copied in the ‘s-Hertogenbosch version. In 2016, the Bosch Research and Conservation Project noted that dendrochronological analysis reveals that the present panel could have been painted from 1501 onwards and more likely from 1503 (loc. cit.). Based on the Renaissance-style ornamentation on the ruined classical arch, they concluded that it would be unlikely to have been painted earlier than 1515-20. It is opinion of the BRCP that present panel and the Philadelphia fragments originally belonged to the same triptych, datable to c. 1515-35, but that neither the paintings nor their underdrawings are by the same hand (p. 427). Silver, however, concludes `All of the under-drawing and shifts of original composition point to the originality of this newly-discovered version, and the underdrawings at least suggest the work of Bosch himself, even if some surface elements indicate workshop execution (not to mention weaker restoration)’ (op. cit., p. 10).