DOI issue:
Nr. 3-4
DOI article:Monkiewicz, Maciej: Ter Brugghen and Honthorst in Poland
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18945#0237
manner of blocking out, with the areas of bright paint over the reddish ground
being as a rule more extensive than the shapes of faces, hands, and other
lighter compositional elements.11
All other versions of Pilate contain in the background, on the left behind
a servant’s back, a scene with Christ escorted by soldiers, essential to the
meaning of the painting. Its presence in our painting as well is of pivotal
importance for understanding of the mutual relations between these pictures,
and thus for a definite conclusion about the priority of our version: since
there are several repetitions of the composition together with the background
scene, there must have been a prime version, where this fragment existed in the
original. In the instance of the Lublin painting only a small part of the canvas
is concerned, since the painting has been cut down on the left (and somewhat
on the right as well). Unfortunately this left side is one of the worst preserved
parts of the composition. It is now coated with a layer of retouches, their plane
corresponding roughly to the area where one would expect the scene with
Christ. The supposition that this scene once existed and has merely been
partially abraded, perhaps over-cleaned and then overpainted as a result of old
restorations of a damaged segment of the painting, is fully confirmed by new
X-ray radiographs.12
11 Due to technical limitations the results of the infra-red examination cannot be reproduced here.
X-ray radiographs made in 1960 in the Restoration Department of the Muzeum Lubelskie in Lublin.
I am grateful to Barbara Czajkowska, keeper of the Old Masters collection in the Muzeum
Lubelskie for giving me the run of this documentation.
12 The new technical examination of the painting (X-ray radiographs and the aforementioned
infra-red reflectography) was carried out in 1996 under direction of Professor Piotr Rudniewski
7: Crispijn i Willem von de
Posse after Hendrick ter
Brugghen, St. Jerome in
a Landscape, engraving
227
being as a rule more extensive than the shapes of faces, hands, and other
lighter compositional elements.11
All other versions of Pilate contain in the background, on the left behind
a servant’s back, a scene with Christ escorted by soldiers, essential to the
meaning of the painting. Its presence in our painting as well is of pivotal
importance for understanding of the mutual relations between these pictures,
and thus for a definite conclusion about the priority of our version: since
there are several repetitions of the composition together with the background
scene, there must have been a prime version, where this fragment existed in the
original. In the instance of the Lublin painting only a small part of the canvas
is concerned, since the painting has been cut down on the left (and somewhat
on the right as well). Unfortunately this left side is one of the worst preserved
parts of the composition. It is now coated with a layer of retouches, their plane
corresponding roughly to the area where one would expect the scene with
Christ. The supposition that this scene once existed and has merely been
partially abraded, perhaps over-cleaned and then overpainted as a result of old
restorations of a damaged segment of the painting, is fully confirmed by new
X-ray radiographs.12
11 Due to technical limitations the results of the infra-red examination cannot be reproduced here.
X-ray radiographs made in 1960 in the Restoration Department of the Muzeum Lubelskie in Lublin.
I am grateful to Barbara Czajkowska, keeper of the Old Masters collection in the Muzeum
Lubelskie for giving me the run of this documentation.
12 The new technical examination of the painting (X-ray radiographs and the aforementioned
infra-red reflectography) was carried out in 1996 under direction of Professor Piotr Rudniewski
7: Crispijn i Willem von de
Posse after Hendrick ter
Brugghen, St. Jerome in
a Landscape, engraving
227