Description
Simon Bening (c.1483-1561)
The Passion of Christ, a leaf from the Enriquez de Ribera Prayerbook, Flanders, probably Bruges, c.1508-9
A dramatic miniature painted by Simon Bening, one of the greatest and most famous Netherlandish manuscript illuminators, from the intriguing Enriquez de Ribera prayerbook. Dismembered and its miniatures dispersed, the lost manuscript is recognised for its striking beauty and iconographical innovation: the present miniature depicts scenes from the Passion of Christ.
Full-page miniature divided into four separate panels depicting the Passion of Christ, on vellum, mounted on strong paper: 135 x 90 mm; miniature including painted frame: 129 x 85 mm; single panel excluding painted frame: c.61 x 40 mm. Mounted and framed.
Provenance:
(1) From the Prayerbook that was made for the Spanish aristocratic family Enriquez de Ribera. The coats of arms of the Ribera family as well as of the Enriquez family are to be found in the border decoration of several companion leaves (see below). Ribera: or three fess vert; Enriquez: Chape ploye, 1 and 2: gules a castle triple towered or [Castile], 3, in base argent a lion passant proper crowned or [Leon]. See Alberto and Arturo Garcia Caraffa, Enciclopedia Heraldica y genealogica hispano americana, 57 vols. Madrid, 1828, vol. 31, pp. 32, 49-52, 80-81, arms, pl. 3a, 264 [Enriquez]; vol. 78, 220-21, 224, 249-50, arms, pl. 7a, 320 [Ribera].
The original manuscript was most likely made for the Spanish nobleman Fadrique Enriquez de Ribera, Marquis of Tarifa (1476-1539). Count Paul Durrieu was the first to identify both armorials – of Enriquez and of Ribera – that appear in the borders of the extant leaves: these two great Sevillan families were only united for the first time through the marriages of Fadrique’s father, Pedro Enriquez de Quiñones, first to his aunt, Beatriz de Ribera, and, after her death, to Fadrique's mother, Catalina de Ribera. Of the male descendants to have borne the Enriquez and Ribera arms, Fadrique stands out as by far the most likely candidate to have commissioned such a manuscript: not only did he spend time in the Netherlands, becoming a Knight of the Golden Fleece in 1518, but he is known to have owned splendid books and manuscripts. The inventory of the c.260 items he added to the Tarifa library includes at least three costly prayerbooks in rich bindings (see María del Carmen Alvarez Márquez, ‘La Biblioteca de don Fadrique Enríquez de Ribera, I Marqués de Tarifa (1532)’, Historia. Instituciones. Documentos, no 13 (1986), pp.1-40).
(2) It is possible that the present leaf was formerly in the Ch. A. De Burlet collection in Berlin. 'Only three of the four miniatures owned by De Burlet were sold, when they were attributed to Simon Bening, in Eine Wiener Sammlung, Berlin, H. Ball and P. Graupe, 12 May 1930, Pt. II, pp. 10-11, nos 20-22, ills.' (see Hindman 1989, p.6, no 8). Judith Anne Testa (1991, p.89) mentions five miniatures from the 'Albert Figdor collection in Vienna', which are identical to the ones that Hindman identifies as the ex-De Burlet leaves.
(3) Private Collection.
Companion leaves:
The Enriquez de Ribera prayerbook must have been a unique devotional manuscript, made to order for Fadrique Enriquez de Ribera. It was likely very densely illustrated; the scenes depicted across the extant leaves are taken from Christ’s Ministry, Passion, Resurrection, Pentecost and beyond, and must have formed part of an unusually full cycle. Furthermore, many of these scenes are rarely illustrated in manuscript art – the depiction of the Rending of the Veil of the Temple (Sotheby’s, 6 July 2000, lot 35), or Joseph of Aramathea and Nicodemus on the way to Calvary in the present leaf are virtually unknown in Netherlandish art, not just rare in Ghent-Bruges illuminated manuscripts. The verso text is preserved for just one of the sister leaves: Lewis E M 6:1 at the Free Library of Philadelphia, a devotion in Spanish that is neither from a standard Book of Hours, nor is it related to those found in any Rosary Psalter produced by Bening and his shop. When the remnants of the manuscript are considered together, it is possible to imagine just how splendid and iconographically innovative a prayerbook this must have been.
Sixteen companion leaves (including cuttings) from the same manuscript are known; the present leaf is either the unidentified leaf formerly in the Ch.A. De Burlet collection (no 8 below), or a new addition to the group.
1. Christ washes the Feet of the Apostles (formerly Paul Durrieu, Paris and Jörn Günther Antiquariat Hamburg, Mittelalterliche Miniaturen und Handschriften , 1993, pp.172-174, no 32).
2. Last Supper and the Institution of the Eucharist (formerly Paul Durrieu, Paris and now Cleveland Museum of Art, 2002.52).
3. Christ's Appearances to the Apostles (formerly Paul Durrieu, Paris; see Literature).
4. Christ's Appearance to Thomas (formerly Paul Durrieu, Paris; see Literature).
All leaves formerly in the possession of Paul Durrieu have been mounted on wood; for an extensive discussion see Hindman 1989 and Testa 1991.
5. Jesus and the Apostles at the Sea of Tiberias (formerly Ch.A. De Burlet, Berlin; present location unknown).
6. Jesus, Peter and John at the Sea of Tiberias (formerly Ch.A. De Burlet, Berlin; probably originally on the same leaf with no 5, present location unknown).
7. Christ performing Miracles (formerly Ch.A. De Burlet, Berlin; now St Louis, Missouri, the St Louis Museum of Art, acc.no. 66:1952; see Testa 1992).
8. Subject unknown, possibly the present leaf? (formerly Ch.A. De Burlet, Berlin).
9. Passion, Resurrection, Last Judgement, Parable of the Fig Tree (Philadelphia, Free Library, John Frederick Lewis Collection, E M 6:1).
10. Pentecost, the Mocking of the Apostles, and St Peter preaching (Philadelphia, Free Library, John Frederick Lewis Collection, E M 6:2).
11. Crucifixion, Veil of the Temple rent in two (formerly Peter Sharrer, New York; Sotheby's, 6 July 2000, lot 35; Hindman 1989, p.14 notes that this leaf 'was recently purchased in Spain, [which] suggests the possibility that the manuscript remained in Spain following its initial execution and, moreover, encourages optimism about the eventual recovery of additional leaves and cuttings from the original manuscript.').
12. Supper at Emmaus (Christie's, 1 December 2016, lot 9; Private Collection).
13. The Resurrection of the Dead, the Resurrected Christ before Mary, The Last Judgment (formerly in a Lille Collection, sold at Rob Michiels Auctions, European and Islamic Arts, 28 April 2019, lot 1201 [unidentified in the catalogue])
14. The Betrayal and Arrest of Christ (formerly in a Lille Collection, sold at Rob Michiels Auctions, European and Islamic Arts, 28 April 2019, lot 1201 [unidentified in the catalogue])
15. The Agony in the Garden (acquired in 2020 by the Louvre, Cabinet des dessins du Louvre)
16. The Crucifixion (acquired in 2020 by the Louvre, Cabinet des dessins du Louvre)
Illumination:
The last of the great Netherlandish illuminators and the most widely renowned, Simon Bening was attracting high-status commissions almost immediately after receiving his mastership in Bruges in 1508, and worked for important patrons across Europe for the next half-century. Presumably trained in Ghent by his father, the illuminator Sanders Bening, Simon’s work drew upon a knowledge of his predecessors while developing his own style, which brought a new humanity to the divine narrative and a new naturalism to the landscape. As summed up by Thomas Kren, ‘the art of no other Flemish illuminator so fully epitomizes the triumph of Flemish miniature painting in Europe and its enduring eminence as a court art’ ( Illuminating the Renaissance, 2003, p.447; for Bening pp.447-486). His documented or signed miniatures form a secure basis for further attributions but differences in scale and intent make chronological certainty impossible, especially since Bening, like many great artists, frequently reworked earlier compositions in his search for perfection.\u2028
While Depositions and Lamentations are frequently found in Passion Cycles in manuscript and panel painting, the scenes in the upper panels of the present miniature are rare: Joseph of Arimathea kneeling in front of Pilate asking for the body of Christ with Nicodemus standing by; and Nicodemus and Joseph on their way to Calvary equipped with myrrh, aloe and white linen. The Gospels tell us that Joseph and Nicodemus were both high-ranking members of the Sanhedrin Council that had condemned Jesus to death, but as closet-Christians, they had dissented. Joseph's desire was to bury Jesus' body according to Jewish custom in his own tomb. In the first compartment, although the banderole referring to Joseph has been scraped off, Pilate's seems to be acceding to Joseph's request to be given the body of Christ: 'CO[N]CEDITUR TIBI S[...]E MORTUUS' (Matthew 27:57-60; Luke 23:50-53; Mark 15:42-64 and John 19:38-42).
The scene with Joseph of Arimathea kneeling before Pilate is found in other illumination cycles from the artistic milieu of Simon Bening. For example, in the Grimani Breviary (Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Ms. Lat. 99 [2138], ff.138v-139), the Master of James IV of Scotland painted an illusionistic carved wooden frame around the Crucifixion and the typologically related scene of Moses and the Brazen Serpent containing a very detailed cycle of the Passion of Christ (see exh. cat. Illuminating the Renaissance 2003, cat.no 126, p.21, fig. 126a) which includes this very scene. Simon Bening only had a small part in the illumination of this important masterpiece of Flemish book-painting, but he must have had access to the enormous reservoir of iconographic patterns that his senior colleagues had used. Simon himself had depicted the scene of Joseph in front of Pilate in a full-page miniature in the Prayerbook of Albrecht of Brandenburg (J. Paul Getty Museum, MS Ludwig IX 19, f.311v), and in the border of the Crucifixion miniature in the Golf Book (British Library, Add MS 24098, f.12v), but there too the compositions differ substantially.
The encounter of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus on their way to Calvary with the ointments and the linen does not, on the other hand, find an iconographic parallel in contemporary painting. In each panel Joseph and Nicodemus are recognisable by their clothes and exotic hats. Joseph, in red, kneels before Pilate, and carries the linen to Calvary (Mark 15:46); Nicodemus, in blue, carries the aloe and the myrrh (John 19:39). We see Bening experimenting with the unfamiliar iconography of Joseph and Nicodemus, but he does not rely here on on older models and patterns (as he does, for example, in his earliest recorded work, dating to 1511, the Imhof Prayerbook, sold at Christie's, The Arcana Collection, part III, 6 July 2011, lot 26; or in the Prayerbook of Albrecht of Brandenburg, c.1520-25). Testa sees this as 'the amplification of more conventional illustrated cycles that characterizes the Spanish Prayerbook' (Testa 1991, p.102).
Stylistic echoes can also be found in the Stein Quadriptych at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore (MS 422), which is datable to the late 1520s (see cat.no 146 in Illuminating the Renaissance 2003, p.458 ff.; Hindman 1989, p.18); and the Prayerbook of Joanna of Ghistelles (dated c.1516, London, BL, Egerton Ms 2125, f.154v, see exh. cat. Illuminating the Renaissance, 2003, cat.no 141, p.452, fig. 141).
There are two contrasting opinions regarding the dating of the Enriquez de Ribera cycle: Testa argues in favour of an earlier date, c.1508-9, supporting Destrée's hypothesis first published in 1923, whereas Hindman argues for a date in the later 1520s, linking it to the Stein Quadriptych and the Prayerbook of Albrecht of Brandenburg, and pointing to Bening's increased activity for Spanish and Portuguese patrons in the 1530s: 'two other features of the leaves help to buttress a date in the late 1520s: their borders and their script. Although Bening executed many figural borders during the 1520s and 1530s, the trompe l'oeil borders presented here are entirely consistent with those of other works generally dated in the 1520s and 1530s [...]' (Hindman 1989, p.18). Conversely, Testa argues that these connections to Spanish and Portuguese patrons could have been bequeathed to Simon by Sanders Bening. And it is also true that Simon Bening makes constant use of older patterns throughout his career (see e.g. T. Kren: 'The importance of patterns in the emergence of a new style of Flemish manuscript illumination after 1470' Manuscripts in Transition. Recycling manuscripts, texts and image: Proceedings of the International Congress held in Brussels, November 5-9, 2002, 2005, pp. 372-373), which often makes dating his works particularly difficult. This, together with the occasional stylistic awkwardness, and the iconographically experimental compositions lead Testa to believe that the Enriquez de Ribera manuscript illuminations must be among the earliest witnesses of Simon Bening's art: 'in comparison to Bening's landscapes in the Brandenburg and Beatty [Rosary in Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, MS W 99] manuscripts, the outdoor settings of both the Spanish Prayerbook and the Beels Prayerbook [today identified as the Imhof Prayerbook] miniatures appear much less accomplished. Of the two, however, the Beels illuminations seem more advanced' (Testa 1991, p.106). Hence, she argues, the manuscript was probably made before the Imhof Prayerbook, which is dated 1511. Moreover, she sees compositional parallels between the panel painting of the 'Virgin enthroned' by Gerard David, dated 1509 (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen) and made in Bruges, and Bening's depiction of Pentecost in this cycle (sister leaf no 10, see Hindman 1989, p.13). Bening could have seen this painting in 1509 when it was still in Bruges, before it was delivered to its commissioner.
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