drawing
- Museum number
- 1854,0628.38
- Description
-
Scenes from the life of St John the Baptist, design for a triptych; at centre the Baptism of Christ, to left St John preaching and to right Salome's dance
Pen and brown ink with some brown wash, partly squared for transfer, on three separate sheets; with black framelines
Verso: Designs for the same triptych; to left the beheading of St John and to right his birth
Pen and brown ink with brown wash, over red chalk
- Production date
- 1535-1536 (c.)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 211 millimetres (max, irregular arched tops)
-
Width: 319 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Stylistically close to a drawing in Fondation Custodia, inv.no.5928. This is a design for a triptych altarpiece, possibly a recording of a now lost work or a vidimus to show the commissioner before the execution of the painting. One of few Netherlandish examples from before the second half of the sixteenth century that includes a design for a frame. Stijn Alsteens observed that this drawing seems to have been altered at a later date: "originally, the drawn frame probably consisted only of two pairs of thin double framing lines, and not of the broad black strip now surrounding the five scenes and throwing Coecke's delicate work somewhat out of balance." in E. Cleland, ed., Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry, New York and New Haven, 2014, cat 18, p. 90-93. Alsteens includes the present sheet in Group A (drawings by and attributed to Coecke) in his subsequent catalogue of Coecke's drawings in Master Drawings (see below).
Additional literature: Waagen, IV, 1857, p.39; J.O. Hand et al., 'The Age of Bruegel: Netherlandish Drawings in the Sixteenth Century', exh.cat. National Gallery of Art Washington and Pierpont Morgan Library New York, Cambridge, 1986-87, cat.no.37; S. Alsteens, 'The Drawings of Pieter Coecke van Aeslt' Master Drawings LII:3 (2014), no. A29.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1973, BM, Netherlandish prints and drawings (no cat.)
1986/7 Nov-Jan, Washington, NGA, 'The Age of Bruegel', (cat.), no.37
2014/15 Oct-Jan, New York, Met Mus of Art, Pieter Coecke van Aelst
- Acquisition date
- 1854
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1854,0628.38
