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We float high above the land, looking across rolling hills toward a shimmering, aquamarine-blue body of water to our left and towns peppered along taller mountains to our right, beneath an incoming storm in this horizontal painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting. Only upon closer inspection does one discover dozens of tiny men and women scattered in groups or individually across the landscape. Closest to us but still tiny in scale, at the lower center, a man wearing a scarlet-red tunic and dark pants chops down a tree as another man wearing navy blue walks away from us. A man snoozes on the grass nearby and another squats in the protection of a hollowed out tree, pants down, in the lower left corner of the painting. The rolling, light brown hills angle away from us to our left. Atop a hill to our left, a tall frame holds up two flaming wheels. At its foot, a person wearing robes kneels and looks up, arms raised, at the wheel, which is on fire. Three people, one wearing armor, lie nearby and others run away. A structure on a rocky outcropping nearby is also on fire, and black smoke billows skyward. In the harbor below, at the center of the composition, two ships tip wildly in the water. People walk and work in pairs and groups through the rest of the landscape, including a bustle of activity around a wooden ship being built to our right. Travelers on foot and on horseback follow a winding road along the harbor toward a castle on the far promontory. Beyond that lies a ship-filled port town, and, across a drawbridge on at the far right, a walled city in the hazy distance. Clouds rolling across the left half of the painting are charcoal gray, almost black. To our right, patches of bright blue sky peek through a thin screen of white clouds.

Antwerp 16th Century (Possibly Matthys Cock)

The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine, c. 1540

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 41

Medium

oil on plywood transferred from panel

Dimensions

overall: 62.2 x 118.2 cm (24 1/2 x 46 9/16 in.)

framed: 86.3 x 141.6 x 8.2 cm (34 x 55 3/4 x 3 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1952.2.18

Artists / Makers

Antwerp 16th Century (painter)

Matthys Cock (painter) Netherlandish, c. 1509 - 1548

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

(Van Diemen Gallery, Berlin).[1] Acquired 1926 in Berlin by Mendel Mayer Rössler [1879-1951];[2] (Van Diemen-Lilienfeld Galleries, New York); sold 1950 Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 by exchange to NGA.

[1] The catalogue of the Exposition d'Art flamand ancien (Antwerp, 1930), no. 53, gives the owner as Dr. Benedict; this refers to Curt Benedict who was with the Van Diemen Gallery, part of a group of galleries under the umbrella organization of the Margraf Concern. The initial ownership of the painting by the Van Diemen-Margraf Gallery is verified in a letter of 27 January 1951 from Karl Lilienfeld to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, in NGA curatorial files.

[2] Rössler, a Polish national, sold this picture in Amsterdam in 1940 to the dealer Walter Paech, who then sold the painting to Hans Posse for Hitler's planned museum in Linz. (See Linz inventory no. 1368, as by Brueghel, National Archives RG260/Boxes 428, 430, copies NGA curatorial files). The records of the Munich Central Collecting Point indicate that the painting was recovered at Alt Aussee and restituted to the Netherlands on 4 March 1946 (See Munich property card #4347/2996, National Archives RG260/Munich Central Collecting Point/Box 501 and Dutch Receipt for Cultural Property no. 8A, dated 7 March 1946, National Archives RG260/Munich Central Collecting Point/Box 288, both copies NGA curatorial files.) The painting was restituted to Rössler on 23 May 1947 (see documentation provided by the Dutch Inspectie Culuurbezit in letter dated 5 February 2002, in NGA curatorial files.)

[3] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2241.

Associated Names

Galerie van Diemen & Co.
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Munich Central Collecting Point
Paech, Walter
Posse, Hans
Van Diemen-Lilienfeld Galleries

Exhibition History

1930: Exposition d'Art flamand ancien, Antwerp, 1930, no. 53, as Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

1998: A Collector's Cabinet, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, no. 19.

2003: Die Flämische Landschaft 1520-1700, Kulturstiftung Ruhr, Villa Hügel, Essen; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 2003-2004, no. 31, repro.

Technical Summary

The transfer to plywood took place before 1936. According to Gluck the original support was poplar. Sometime shortly after 1932 several figures in the foreground, which seem to have been later additions, were removed.[1] It is likely that the painting was transferred at the same time. There are extensive, evenly scattered insect exit holes in the paint and ground layers and no sign in either of horizontal join lines. Poplar is more susceptible to insect damage and worm tunneling than oak and is more likely to exist as a single piece of wood the size of this painting. There are scattered losses of varying sizes throughout, but the actual extent of abrasion is difficult to gauge under the thick varnish. There are repainted losses in the upper and lower left corners and along the right and bottom edges. Extensive later glazes are found in the sky at the upper left and to a lesser extent in the upper right and in the foreground landscape. Underdrawing in what appears to be brown paint is visible with the naked eye. The only underdrawing revealed by infrared reflectography is in the mountain at the far right.

[1] Glück 1936, no. 2, gives the support as plywood and cites the owner's statement that the painting was originally on poplar. The reproduction shows the picture with the extra figures removed. Michel 1932,130, fig. 3, reproduces the painting with the figures present.

Bibliography

1931: Michel, Edouard. Bruegel. Paris, 1931: 75, pl. 46.

1932: Glück, Gustav. Bruegels Gemälde. Vienna (1937 ed.): 93, no. 81.

1932: Michel, Edouard. "Hypothèses sur quelques peintures flamandes à propos de Bruegel le Vieux." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 7 (1932): 132, fig. 3.

1935: De Tolnay, Charles. Pierre Bruegel l'Ancien. Brussels, 1935: 97, no. 56.

1936: Glück, Gustav. Das Bruegel Buch. Vienna, 1936: no. 2, repro. 10, 20.

1938: Wetering, Cornelis van de. Die Entwicklung der niederländischen Landschaftsmalerei vom Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts bis zur Jahrhundertmitte. Berlin, 1938: 79, pl. 5 (diagram).

1951: Glück, Gustav. Pieter Bruegel the Elder. London, 1951: 9, 17, no. 2, repro. (also Vienna, 1951).

1951: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 202, no. 89, repro., as Landscape with the Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria by Pieter Bruegel, the Elder.

1959: Gudlaugsson, S. J. "Het Errera-schetsboek en Lucas van Valckenborch." Oud Holland 74 (1959): 129.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 290, repro., as by Pieter Bruegel, the Elder.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 21, as by Pieter Bruegel, the Elder.

1967: Bianconi, Piero. The Complete Paintings of Bruegel. New York, 1967: 87, no. 2, repro. 88.

1968: Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 113.

1968: Klein, H. Arthur, and Mina Klein. Peter Bruegel the Elder. Artist of Abundance. New York, 1968: 184.

1968: Koch, Robert A. Joachim Patinir. Princeton, 1968: 9.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 14, repro., as by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

1969: Franz, Heinrich Gerhard. Niederländische Landschaftsmalerei im Zeitalter des Manierismus. 2 vols. Graz, 1969: 2: fig. 189.

1971: Wied, Alexander. "Lucas van Valckenborch." Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses (Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien) 31 (1971): 137.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue (National Gallery of Art). Washington, 1975: 50-51, repro., as by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: no. 192, repro.

1977: Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 91-93, fig. 90, text fig. 16, as Landscape with Scenes from the Life of St. Catherine of Alexandria.

1980: Wied, Alexander. Bruegel. Translated by Anthony Lloyd. London, 1980: 12, fig. 13.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 168, no. 186, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 32, repro.

1986: Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1986: 3-6, repro. 2.

2002: Muller, Elke and Helen Schretlen. BetwistBezit: De Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit en de teruggave van roofkunst na 1945. Zwolle, 2002: 105, 171, fig. 63, 188-191, 219.