Christ stares calmly out at us from the heart of this picture, his serenity a vivid contrast to the brutality of his tormentors. At the back are two soldiers, one about to force the crown of thorns onto Christ’s head. In front two men kneel in mock homage; one seems about to tear off Christ’s robe.
This is the only painting of Christ mocked now known that can be attributed to Bosch, and its upright format is highly unusual. It can't have been easy to imagine and Bosch clearly expended an enormous amount of effort on designing the picture, which is carefully structured through shape and colour. He toned down the violence of the scene: in the underdrawing (the preliminary outlining of the composition), the four men treat Christ with greater brutality. The changes make the picture more interesting and ambiguous: the men’s expressions are open to different interpretations.
In 1882, the picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy. Reviewing the exhibition, an anonymous author stated that the owner, Charles Magniac, had ‘bought it, we believe, in Spain’ and wondered whether it had been ‘brought back from the Netherlands to Spain by one of the many Spanish or Portuguese patrons of Art...’. Charles Magniac (1826–1891) resided in London and at Colworth House, Sharnbrook, Bedfordshire, and was the eldest son of the noted collector Hollingworth Magniac (1786–1867). Charles Magniac was a Member of Parliament, an ‘authority on all questions of finance’ and first president of the London Chamber of Commerce; he died intestate. He had contacts at the British embassies in Madrid and Lisbon. Sir Charles Augustus Murray (1806–1895), between 1867 and 1874 Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the King of Portugal, was married to a sister of Charles Magniac’s wife. Edmund Douglas Veitch Fane (1837–1900), who was between 1881 and 1885 secretary of the embassy at Madrid, was first cousin once removed to the husband of Frances Eliza Magniac, Charles’s sister.
The Magniac collection was sold at Christie’s on 2–15 July 1892. NG 4744, which was lot 134, was reproduced in the sale catalogue and purchased on 4 July for £210 by ‘Crawshay’, who bought three other pictures at the same sale. He was Robert Thompson Crawshay (1855–1940), a younger brother of William Thompson Crawshay of Cyfarthfa Castle, Merthyr Tydfil, and Caversham Park in Oxfordshire. Robert lived for much of his life in Rome, where his house ‘became a noted venue for writers, musicians and artists’. By 1933, the picture belonged to the Galleria Sangiorgi in Rome; during the winter of 1933–4, it was exported to Switzerland. Robert Thompson Crawshay, all of whose papers were lost during the Second World War, is believed to have reorganised his collection after 1932, when his son Jack William Leslie Crawshay (1894–1950) became honorary Military Attaché at the British Embassy in Paris. Much of Robert’s collection of pictures and furniture was sent from Rome to his son in Paris and it seems possible that NG 4744 was sold at that time to the Galleria Sangiorgi. On 5 June 1934 it was in Lucerne, where it was inspected by Kenneth Clark and by Friedländer, who, by coincidence, arrived on the same day. It was then sent to London, where it was shown on 12 June 1934 to the Trustees of the National Gallery. They expressed an interest ‘but there was a disposition not to act hurriedly in the matter’. On 10 July they agreed to offer 300,000 lire for the picture; on 14 July Giorgio Sangiorgi wrote to Clark that the offer was ‘under my expectations’ but nevertheless accepted it. Clark wrote on 17 July to Friedländer to thank him for his ‘support over the picture because as you can imagine there was some opposition to the purchase of anything superficially so unattractive’. Clark confided in a letter of 18 July to H. Isherwood Kay:
The Bosch was not popular but was supported by Courtauld, Witt and Gore, Duveen keeping [up] a ground bass of ‘My God! what a picture’. The result was we offered 300,000 lire, which to my great surprise has been accepted. I am very glad ... I get no support from Pouncey and Davies who detest it.
Clark reported to the Trustees on 9 October that the offer had been accepted; on 20 October Messrs Coutts were instructed to pay 300,000 lire from the Temple West Fund to the Galleria Sangiorgi. Late in 1934, they paid a further 3,000 lire, as the interest at 4% for three months on the purchase price. The three months covered the period between the offer in July and the payment in October. The total cost of the picture was calculated at £5,291 16s. 9d. In November 1934, Clark reported to the Trustees that the picture had been hung in Room XIX. It ‘had been visited by very many people and an unprecedented number of photographs of it had been sold’. It was on view from 3 November and was reproduced that day in The Times.
This painting is included in a list of works with incomplete provenance from 1933–1945; for more information see Whereabouts of paintings 1933–1945.
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Lorne Campbell, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings: With French Paintings before 1600’, London 2014; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
L. Campbell, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings: With French Paintings before 1600, 2 vols, London 2014
This sixteenth-century Spanish frame is crafted from pinewood. The original ebonised surface with water gilding, on the upper back edge moulding and on the sight edge, is heavily worn.
The frame, acquired by the Gallery in 2008, complements Bosch’s Christ Mocked. The frame had previously been modified and was fitted on arrival to accommodate the painting.
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
