Workshop of Dirk Bouts, 'Mater Dolorosa', probably about 1470-5

These two panels were once a diptych (a painting in two parts) showing Christ crowned with thorns and his mother, the Virgin, grieving. Both the Virgin and Christ are shown close up, almost like portraits. Both are red-eyed and weeping, drawing them together emotionally. The frames (now lost) and figures both seem to cast shadows on the gold backgrounds.

Numerous versions of these paintings survive, most of rather poor quality. A more or less identical diptych in the Louvre, Paris, was apparently painted in the same workshop, from tracings of the same pattern drawings. Both were probably made in Dirk Bouts’s workshop.

The popularity of these kind of images was part of the great flowering of personal religious activity outside formal church worship which took place in the Netherlands in the fifteenth century. Small devotional paintings such as this were used as an aid to private prayer. Christ and the Virgin’s sorrow was intended to inspire empathy in the viewer, who was encouraged to meditate upon Christ’s suffering and his mother’s grief as a route to personal salvation. Images such as these, and Christ Crowned with Thorns were perhaps connected with the interest that the Devotio Moderna (‘Modern Devotion’) movement took in the pain inflicted by the crown of thorns.

The paintings are in good condition, although somewhat affected by discoloured varnishes. Both panels were made from the same tree, and although they have been slightly cut down none of the painted surfaces has been lost.