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Lot Essay
This impressive, deeply moving composition was most likely commissioned by a Spaniard and aptly reflects what Max J. Friedländer termed as the 'massive grandeur and weighty three-dimensionality' of altarpieces painted for the Spanish market (M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, XI, Leiden, 1974, p. 59). Ambrosius Benson was a South Netherlandish painter of Italian birth who, despite recent strides in scholarship, remains rather enigmatic. Originally known as 'Ambrogio Benzone', he was likely attracted by the commercial and artistic reputation of Bruges, where he acquired citizenship in 1518 and was admitted to the guild of painters the following year. He is known to have worked in the studio of Gerard David, and his emerging style showed both Netherlandish and Lombard influences, which proved to be a highly successful formula. However, Benson's posthumous reputation was soon eclipsed, and his works scattered. It was not until Friedländer made the connection between an altarpiece of St. Anthony of Padua (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Art, Brussels), which is signed 'AB', and a number of works in Spain that had been attributed by Carl Justi to the anonymous 'Master of Segovia' after his magisterial altarpiece of The Deposition in the church of Saint Michael in Segovia, that Benson's oeuvre could be reconstructed.
It is particularly noteworthy that so much of Benson's oeuvre may be found in Spain. Contacts between Bruges and Castille were strong in the first half of the sixteenth century, especially with Segovia since both cities were important centers for the trade of wool and cloth. Benson's house – bought from a Spaniard in exchange for paintings – was situated near the Exchange in Bruges, and his closest friend and patron, Sancho de Santander, was of Spanish descent. It is likely that Benson's Italian origins facilitated his dealings with Spanish clients, and the religiosity and poignant simplicity of his works were evidently well-suited to the Spanish market.
Establishing an exact chronology for Benson's oeuvre remains complex since only one of his altarpieces is dated. It can be assumed, however, that the artist must have already established his reputation before receiving commissions from Spain, and therefore that this work probably dates from after 1530. Two other smaller variants of this altarpiece are documented by Georges Marlier: one with a shaped top, measuring 92.5 x 67.5 cm., and dated by Marlier to around 1530-32, which was last recorded in 1951 in a London private collection, and the other a workshop version, which formed the central panel of a triptych (now dismembered), formerly with the Spanish Art Gallery, London, measuring 48.2 x 31.6 cm. (G. Marlier, Ambrosius Benson et la peinture à Bruges au temps de Charles-Quint, Damme, 1957, pp. 99-101, 282-283, 294, nos. 7 and 47, pl. XII). The latter was probably produced around 1537, the date that was borne by the frame when it was still a triptych. Benson's composition is indebted to Rogier van der Weyden’s Christ carried to the tomb, now known only through a drawing at the Louvre (and which is, in turn, a variant of Rogier's Descent from the Cross in the Prado). Friedländer proposed that Rogier’s lost painting could have been the same as the one that Albrecht Dürer admired in Bruges in the Prinsenhof chapel, and thus would have been easily accessible to Benson. The main difference from Rogier’s prototype is the inclusion of the weeping figure of Mary of Clopas in a white wimple. For this striking figure, Benson appears to have drawn on the weeping figure in Gerard David's Descent from the Cross (The Frick Collection, New York). Equally remarkable is the figure of Mary Magdalene, a favorite subject of Benson, since it enabled him to depict beautiful young women alluringly dressed in contemporary fashions. It is typical of the artist to have individualized the faces so carefully, with each character expressing their grief in a distinct manner. Sporting a black chaperon and a robe sumptuously lined with fur, the central figure who looks solemnly at Christ while holding his shroud may be a portrait of our painting’s Spanish patron in the guise of Nicodemus.
It is particularly noteworthy that so much of Benson's oeuvre may be found in Spain. Contacts between Bruges and Castille were strong in the first half of the sixteenth century, especially with Segovia since both cities were important centers for the trade of wool and cloth. Benson's house – bought from a Spaniard in exchange for paintings – was situated near the Exchange in Bruges, and his closest friend and patron, Sancho de Santander, was of Spanish descent. It is likely that Benson's Italian origins facilitated his dealings with Spanish clients, and the religiosity and poignant simplicity of his works were evidently well-suited to the Spanish market.
Establishing an exact chronology for Benson's oeuvre remains complex since only one of his altarpieces is dated. It can be assumed, however, that the artist must have already established his reputation before receiving commissions from Spain, and therefore that this work probably dates from after 1530. Two other smaller variants of this altarpiece are documented by Georges Marlier: one with a shaped top, measuring 92.5 x 67.5 cm., and dated by Marlier to around 1530-32, which was last recorded in 1951 in a London private collection, and the other a workshop version, which formed the central panel of a triptych (now dismembered), formerly with the Spanish Art Gallery, London, measuring 48.2 x 31.6 cm. (G. Marlier, Ambrosius Benson et la peinture à Bruges au temps de Charles-Quint, Damme, 1957, pp. 99-101, 282-283, 294, nos. 7 and 47, pl. XII). The latter was probably produced around 1537, the date that was borne by the frame when it was still a triptych. Benson's composition is indebted to Rogier van der Weyden’s Christ carried to the tomb, now known only through a drawing at the Louvre (and which is, in turn, a variant of Rogier's Descent from the Cross in the Prado). Friedländer proposed that Rogier’s lost painting could have been the same as the one that Albrecht Dürer admired in Bruges in the Prinsenhof chapel, and thus would have been easily accessible to Benson. The main difference from Rogier’s prototype is the inclusion of the weeping figure of Mary of Clopas in a white wimple. For this striking figure, Benson appears to have drawn on the weeping figure in Gerard David's Descent from the Cross (The Frick Collection, New York). Equally remarkable is the figure of Mary Magdalene, a favorite subject of Benson, since it enabled him to depict beautiful young women alluringly dressed in contemporary fashions. It is typical of the artist to have individualized the faces so carefully, with each character expressing their grief in a distinct manner. Sporting a black chaperon and a robe sumptuously lined with fur, the central figure who looks solemnly at Christ while holding his shroud may be a portrait of our painting’s Spanish patron in the guise of Nicodemus.