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A young, bearded man wearing only a white loincloth stands facing us in a pale blue river with a man to one side and a winged angel to the other in this vertical painting. They all have pale or tanned skin and tawny-brown hair. The man at the center, Jesus, stands knee-deep in the placid water with his hands together in prayer. He looks off to our left, his hollow eyes set above a drooping mouth. To our left, a man kneels on the rocky riverbank and trickles water from his hand onto Jesus’s head. That man wears a fawn-brown robe under a raspberry-red cloak. He is bearded with curly brown hair, and he has dark circles under his eyes and a downturned mouth. The winged angel stands to our right on a flat stone, closer to us. Gold and pink wings rise vertically along the right edge of the composition. The angel wears voluminous white robes and holds a marine-blue garment in both hands. A white dove hovering over Jesus’s head is surrounded by a halo edged with teal, pea-green, and pink rings. A bearded man wearing a tiered, jeweled crown looks down from a round opening in the ice-blue sky above the dove. He holds one hand up in blessing and holds an orb topped by a cross in the other. About ten fish nibble at the rocks near Jesus’s feet in the river, which winds through a pale green field to a town of turrets and towers in the distance.

Juan de Flandes

The Baptism of Christ, c. 1508/1519

Not on View

series Title

Four Panels from the San Lazaro Altarpiece [1961.9.22-25]

Medium

oil on panel

Dimensions

painted surface: 124.2 x 79 cm (48 7/8 x 31 1/8 in.)
overall (panel): 125.3 x 81.1 cm (49 5/16 x 31 15/16 in.)

framed: 143.2 x 99.1 x 10.8 cm (56 3/8 x 39 x 4 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1961.9.25

Artists / Makers

Juan de Flandes (artist) Hispano-Flemish, active 1496 - 1519

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

Altarpiece of the "capilla mayor (main chapel)," church of San Lázaro, Palencia, commissioned c. 1508, until at least 1761.[1] Acquired c. 1952 by (Frederick Mont, New York);[2] purchased 11 February 1953 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] Don Sancho de Castilla made the commission. A 1761 document confirming its presence in the church was discovered by Ignace Vandevivere, Primitifs flamands. Corpus. La cathédrale de Palencia et l'église paroissiale de Cervera de Pisuerga, Brussels, 1967: 45.

[2] In 1952 all four panels now in the Gallery (1961.9.22-.25) were with Frederick Mont in New York; see letter of 28 October 1952 from Chandler R. Post to Mont in NGA curatorial files. Mont refers to having bought the pictures in Spain in a letter dated 16 April 1953 to Wilhelm Valentiner (Valentiner Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington: microfilm reel no. 2143; copies in NGA curatorial files).

{3} See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2086.

Associated Names

Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Mont, Inc., Frederick
San Lázaro, Church of

Technical Summary

The panel was cradled and the painting cleaned and restored in 1953/1954. Like 1961.9.24, The Adoration of the Magi, this panel retains its unpainted margin on all sides, though the edges have been planed down to give a neat appearance, and the bottom edge is not as wide as those on the other three sides. The preparation of the panel itself, which is made up of four vertical members, is the same as the other panels from the San Lázaro altarpiece. The fully worked out underdrawing in this scene is easiest to detect in the figure of Christ where wide, evenly spaced hatching strokes were made visible with infrared reflectography. The concentric rings around the dove of the Holy Ghost were incised into the ground with a compass. A number of artist's changes have become visible with time: the height of the tower to the right of Christ's head was lowered and the angle and position of Saint John's right hand were changed. The painting is in good condition. Losses along the joins in the boards, particularly at the left, small localized areas of loss throughout, and some larger losses in the drapery hanging down the Baptist's back have been filled and inpainted. The inpainting is now somewhat discolored.

Bibliography

1887: Justi, Carl. "Juan de Flandes, ein niederländischer Hofmaler Isabella der Katholischen." Jahrbuch der königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen (Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen) 8 (1887): 167.

1907: Winkler, [Friedrich]. "Juan de Flandes." In Thieme-Becker. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950:19(1926):279.

1908: Justi, Carl. Miscellaneen aus drei Jahrhunderten spanischen Kunstlebens. 2 vols. Berlin, 1908: 1:324.

1909: Mayer, August L. "Studien zur Quattrocento-malerei in Nordwestkastilien." Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft 32 (1909): 519.

1913: Mayer, August L. Geschichte der spanischen Malerei. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1913: 1:149.

1917: Moreno Villa, José. "Un pintor de la reina católica." Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones 25 (1917): 281.

1932: H[ulin] de L[oo], [Georges]. Trésor de l'art flamand du moyen âge au XVIIIe siècle. Mémorial de l'exposition d'art flamand ancien à Anvers. 1930. 2 vols. Paris, 1932: 1:51.

1933: Post, Chandler Rathfon. A History of Spanish Painting. 14 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 19303-1966: 4, pt. 1:45, 50.

1950: Revilla Vielva, Ramón. "Retablo Mayor de la Santa Iglesia Catedral de Palencia." Publicaciones de la Institución "Tello Téllez de Meneses" no. 5 (1950): 98.

1952: Brans, Jan V. L. Isabel la Católica y el arte Hispano-Flamenco. Madrid, 1952: 96-98, pl. 43.

1952: Museo del Prado. Catálogo. Madrid (and later editions), 1952: 204.

1953: Brans, Jan V. L. "Juan de Flandes, pintor de la Reina y de Castilla." Clavileño 4, no. 21 (1953): 29, 32.

1954: Sánchez Cantón, Francisco Javier. "Las adquisiciones del Museo del Prado en los años 1952 y 1953." Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueologia 27 (1954): 5.

1955: Gudiol Ricart, José. Pintura Gótica. In Ars Hispaniae. 22 vols. Madrid, 1955: 9:259-260.

1956: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 110, no. 42, repro. 113.

1957: Gudiol, José. "Oeuvres inédites de Jean de Flandres." Miscellanea Prof. Dr. D. Roggen. Antwerp, 1957: 116, 118.

1958: Gaya Nuño, Juan Anotonio. La pintura española fuera de España; historia y catàlogo. Madrid, 1958: 148, nos. 761, 762.

1958: Post, Chandler Rathfon. A History of Spanish Painting. 14 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1958: 12, part 2:615, 618, 620, 622-625, figs. 262, 263.

1959: Brans, Jan V. L. Vlaamse schilders in dienst der Koningen van Spanje. Louvain, 1959: 55.

1959: Eisler, Colin. "Juan de Flandes's Saint Michael and Saint Francis." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin n.s. 18 (1959): 130.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 267, repro.

1959: Sánchez Cantón, Francisco Javier. The Prado. New York, 1959: 138.

1962: Bermejo, Elisa. Juan de Flandes. Madrid, 1962: 28-31, 44, pls. 36-39.

1962: Puyvelde, Leo van. La peinture flamande au siècle de Bosch et Breughel. Paris, 1962: 353.

1963: Sammlung Heinz Kisters. Altdeutsche und altniederländische Gemälde. Exh. cat. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg, 1963: 14-15, under no. 76.

1964: Anzelewsky, Fedja. "Der Meister der Lübecker Bibel von 1494." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 27 (1964): 57.

1965: Held, Julius S. "The Bearing of the Cross Hitherto Attributed to Juan de Flandes." The Art Quarterly 38 (1965): 31.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 71.

1967: Vandevivere, Ignace. Primitifs flamands. Corpus. La cathédrale de Palencia et l'église paroissiale de Cervera de Pisuerga. Brussels, 1967: 44-47.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 62, repro.

1969: Osten, Gert von der, and Horst Vey. Painting and Sculpture in Germany and the Netherlands 1500 to 1600. Harmondsworth, 1969: 142.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 182, 184, repro. 183, 185.

1976: Lurie, Ann Tzeutschler. "Birth and Naming of St. John the Baptist Attributed to Juan de Flandes: A Newly Discovered Panel from a Hypothetical Altarpiece." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63 (1976): 127, fig. 21.

1977: Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 188, fig. 190.

1978: Rogers, Millard F., Jr. Spanish Paintings in the Cincinnati Art Museum. Cincinnati, 1978: 12.

1979: De Coo, Josef, and Nicole Reynaud. "Origen del retablo de San Juan Bautista atribuido a Juan de Flandes." Archivo Español de Arte y Arqueologia 52 (1979): 140-141, figs. 7, 9.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. Washington, 1984: 138, no. 139, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 212, repro.

1986: Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1986: 125-133, repro. 129.

1998: Denny, Don. "Baptism." In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 1:107.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 59, no. 45, color repro.

2011: Weniger, Matthias. Sittow, Morros, Juan de Flandes: Drei Maler aus dem Norden am Hof Isabellas der Katholischen. Kiel, 2011: 250-255, no. 12.4, fig. 179.