Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (37.1996)

Pieter van Thiel - continue to support it as an autograph although poorly
preserved work.25 Recently, however, a previously unknown variant version
(Fig. 1) appeared on the French art market.26 As luck would have it, this
version is also in poor condition. Nevertheless, in a few well-preserved parts
the execution is of high quality and perhaps even good enough to be at least
partially by the hand of ter Brugghen. It is notable, however, that the French
version differs from the Utrecht canvas in one detail: the placement of the keys
on the table rather than hanging on the wall, There are also other old copies
with this arrangement, suggesting that it is this version of the composition
rather than the one in the Centraal Museum that experienced a certain
popularity in early seventeenth century Utrecht.

With the return of Baburen and Honthorst from Rome in the Summer of
1620 a Caravaggesque critical mass was achieved in Utrecht, and it is the
interaction of these artist with ter Brugghen that provided the foundations of
the Dutch Caravaggesque style. The discovery of hitherto unknown Italian
period Baburen pictures, and important new examples of his earliest Utrecht
production has helped clarify his development as well as his relationship with
ter Brugghen while also calling attention to his role in the formation of what
Joachim von Sandrart called “Manfredi’s Method.”27 It is important that we
remember that Sandrart’s initial ideas about Manfredi must have been formed
in Utrecht, before he went to Italy, when he was a student in Honthorst’s studio
around 1625-1627. The most interesting of these new Baburens is the fully
signed and 1621 dated Christ Cleansing the Temple (Fig. 2).28 Of the greatest
importance for our understanding of how Manfredi was understood and
utilized in Utrecht is the fact that shortly before he left Rome, Baburen
executed an earlier variant version of this composition, in a private European
collection.29 The relationship between the two pictures is immediately
apparent, although the Roman period work is much more Manfredi-like in
every important stylistic aspect. Indeed, it compares well with Manfredi’s

25 Pieter J. J. van Thiel, “In Quest of the early ter Brugghen,” in: R. Klessmann, ed., Hendrick ter
Brugghen und die Nachfolger Caravaggios in Holland, Braunschweig 1988, pp.85-88.

26 Canvas, 70 x 91 cm. Exhibition catalogue Maîtres anciens du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle, Société Labatut,
Paris 1992, cat. 7, illus. in color. The picture is said to have come from a private collection in France,
as Georges de Ta Tour.

27 J. von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Bau-, Bild-, und Mahlerey- Künste, Nuremberg, 1675,
edited by A. R. Peltzer, Munich 1925, p.170. See also the discusson in the exhibition catalogue Dopo
Caravaggio; Bartolomeo Manfredi et la Manfrediana Methodus, Cremona 1987, passim.

28 Canvas, 158 x 206 cm. Signed lower left on the edge of the table: ‘TBaburen fecit 1621’; ‘TB’
in ligature. With Newhouse Gallery, New York. There is also a workshop replica of this composition
in the Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Münster, canvas, 156 x 195 cm. Interestingly, the color in the
replica is somewhat different from that in the prime version.

29 Canvas, 170 x 217 cm. Sale, Christie’s, Rome, 1987. Acquired from the Spoletto art market, 1987.
According to a note on the back of an old photograph in the Roberto Longhi Foundation archives,
Florence, once in the Manzitti (?) collection, Genoa. Benedict Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe,
second revised edition by Luisa Vertova, III, 1989, Fig. 1029, incorrectly as “South Netherlandish
(between Rombouts and Baburen).”

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