Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (37.1996)

2. After Hendrick ter
Brugghen, Pilate Washing
his Hands, Kassel,
Gemäldegalerie Alte
Meister, Staatliche Museen

inferior. He believed - only on the basis of a photograph - that it “looks at least
as good” as the one in Kassel. However, he delayed definite attribution,
supposing at the same time that both may have been studio repetitions in
which the master himself participated, repetitions following a hitherto
unknown signed original.3 Slatkes agreed with the opinion in the catalogue of
the exhibition of ter Brugghen and Dutch Caravaggisti of 1986/87, believing
that probably none of he known variants of the Pilate Washing his Hands is
original, and dating the putative autograph version to c. 1618-19.4

In his review of the same exhibition, Schnackenburg claims that the picture
in Lublin is superior in quality not only to the copy at Gateshead but also to the
version in Kassel, which in comparison reveals simplifications of outlines, in
the modeling of draperies, and in the rendering of the large tin bowl. He also
believes that the Lublin painting was cut down on the left and right edges, but
that its background was also repainted, and thus a scene of Christ being
escorted by the soldiers is missing, so important, in his opinion, for the
recognition of priority. Putting the designation “Hendrick ter Brugghen (?)” in

3 B. Nicolson, “Terbrugghen since 1960”, in : Album Amicorum J. G. van Gelder, Den Haag 1973,
p.237-238.

4 L.J. Slatkes, “Die Kunst des Hendrick ter Brugghen”, in: A. Blankert, L.J. Slatkes, et ah,
Holländische Malerei im neuem Licht. Hendrick ter Brugghen und seine Zeitgenossen, exh. cat.
Centraal Museum, Utrecht 1986/1987, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig 1987,
p.48.

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