Workshop of Dirk Bouts, 'Mater Dolorosa', probably about 1470-5
About the work
Overview
This small painting of the sorrowing Virgin once went with another painting in our collection, Christ Crowned with Thorns. They originally made up a diptych, a folding painting in two parts. It was probably intended for private prayer: the Virgin’s grief was intended to inspire empathy in the viewer, who was encouraged, like her, to meditate upon the suffering of Christ at the Passion (his torture and crucifixion). Many versions of this image survive. This one was probably made in Bouts’s workshop towards the end of his life.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- Mater Dolorosa
- Artist
- Workshop of Dirk Bouts
- Artist dates
- 1400? - 1475
- Part of the series
- Diptych: Christ and the Virgin
- Date made
- probably about 1470-5
- Medium and support
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- 36.8 × 27.9 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Presented by Queen Victoria at the Prince Consort's wish, 1863
- Inventory number
- NG711
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
Provenance
NG711 and NG712 were in the collection of a ‘Frau von Welden’ at Laupheim (in Würtemberg): she was possibly Judith Maria, Gräfin Künigl (1769–1837), wife of Karl Albrecht, Freiherr von Welden (died 1808), of the Gross-Laupheim family. At an unknown date, but before January 1813, she sold them to Johann Georg Deuringer, a dealer and the proprietor of the ‘Drei Mohren’ inn at Augsburg; they were bought from him in 1813 by Ludwig Kraft Ernst, Prince of Oettingen-Wallerstein (1791–1870), and were among the Oettingen-Wallerstein pictures which were sent to England in 1847 and which became in 1851 the property of Prince Albert (1819–61). They were presented by Queen Victoria, at the Prince Consort’s wish, in 1863.
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Lorne Campbell, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Schools’, London 1998; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Exhibition history
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2016Blood & Tears. Albrecht Bouts and the Image of the PassionNational Museum of History and Art Luxembourg7 October 2016 - 12 February 2017Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum8 March 2017 - 11 June 2017
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2019Making a Masterpiece: Bouts and Beyond, 1450-2020York Art Gallery11 October 2019 - 26 January 2020
Bibliography
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1813Raisonnirender Kunstgemälde-Ktalog und Beschreibung der … Gemälde-Sammlung des J. G. Deuringer…, Augsburg 1813
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1848Descriptive Catalogue of a Collection of Ancient Greek, Italian, German, Flemish and Dutch Pictures (Belonging to Prince Ludwig Kraft Ernst Von Oettingen-Wallerstein) Now at Kensington Palace, London 1848
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1854G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], vol. 2, trans. E. Eastlake, London 1854
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1857G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], translated from German by Elizabeth Eastlake, 3 vols, London 1857, vol. 3
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1857G. Scharf, Catalogue of the Art Treasures of the United Kingdom: Collected at Manchester in 1857, London 1857
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1857G. Scharf, Catalogue of the Art Treasures of the United Kingdom: Collected at Manchester in 1857, Provisional Catalogue, Manchester 1857
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1864National Gallery, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery: Foreign Schools, London 1864
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1865A. Michiels, Histoire de la peinture flamande depuis ses débuts jusqu'en 1864, Paris 1865
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1888E.T. Cook, A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery Including, by Special Permission, Notes Collected from the Works of Mr. Ruskin, London 1888
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1889National Gallery, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery with Biographical Notices of the Painters: Foreign Schools, London 1889
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1904M.H. Witt, The German and Flemish Masters in the National Gallery, London 1904
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1924M.J. Friedländer, Die altniederländische Malerei, 14 vols, Berlin 1924
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1929National Gallery, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square: Catalogue, 86th edn, London 1929
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1932L. Baldass, 'Die Entwicklung des Dirk Bouts', Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, VI, 1932, pp. 77-114
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1945Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: Early Netherlandish School, London 1945
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1953M. Davies, The National Gallery, London, Les Primitifs flamands. I, Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pay-Bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle 3, 2 vols, Antwerp 1953
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1955Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: Early Netherlandish School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1955
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1956E. Panofsky, 'Jean Hey's "Ecce Homo": Speculations about Its Author, Its Donor and Its Iconography', Bulletin des Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, V, 1956, pp. 94-138
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1958N. Lieb, Die Fugger und die Kunst im Zeitalter der hohen Reniassance, Munich 1958
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1961C. Eisler, Les Primitifs Flamands, 1: Corpus…, 4: New England Museums, Brussels 1961
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1962H. Adhémar, Les primitifs flamands. I. Corpus…, 5, Le Musée National du Louvre, Paris, Brussels 1962
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1964K. Arndt, 'Review: C. Eisler, "Les Primitifs Flamands, 1 Corpus… 4. New England Museums", Brussels, 1961', Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 1964, pp. 173-81
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1965V. Loewinson-Lessing, Les primitifs flamands I… Le musée de l'Ermitage, Brussels 1965
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1967M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, eds N. Veronée-Verhaegen and H. Pauwels, trans. H. Norden, 14 vols, Leiden 1967
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1970L.K.E. von Oettingen-Wallerstein, Grundbuch der Hochfürstlich Oettingen-Wallersteinischen altdeutscher Gemaehlde: Erster Teil, gefertiget in den Jahren 1817 u. 1818, Germany 197-?
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1975Dirk Bouts en zijn tijd (exh. cat. Sint-Pieterskerk, 12 September - 3 November 1975), Louvain 1975
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1980E. Bermejo Martinez, La pintura de los primitivos flamencos en España, 2 vols, Madrid 1980
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1984S. Ringbom, Icon to Narrative, 2nd edn, Doornspijk 1984
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1987Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Early Netherlandish School, 3rd edn, London 1987
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1989M. Wolff, 'An Image of Compassion: Dieric Bouts's Sorrowing Madonna', Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, XV, 1989, pp. 112-25
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1991J. Dunkerton et al., Giotto to Dürer: Early Renaissance Painting in the National Gallery, New Haven 1991
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1992C. Schuler, 'The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin: Popular Culture and Cultic Imagery in Pre-Reformation Europe', Simiolus, XXI, 1992, pp. 5-28
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1994'La chronique des arts: Principales acquisitions des musées en 1993', Gazette des beaux-arts, 1994
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1997M. Spring, 'The Technique and the Materials of the Paintings attributed to Memling in the National Gallery, London', in H. Verougstraete-Marcq, R. van Schoute and M. Smeyers (eds), Memling Studies: Proceedings of the International Colloquium. 10-12 November, Bruges, 1994), Louvain 1997, pp. 213-9
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1998Campbell, Lorne, National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings, London 1998
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1998M. Smeyers, Dirk Bouts: Schilder van de Stilte, Louvain 1998
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1999G. Perry and C. Cunningham (eds), Academies, Museums and Canons of Art, London 1999
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2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
About this record
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.
Images
About the series: Diptych: Christ and the Virgin
Workshop of Dirk Bouts, 'Mater Dolorosa', probably about 1470-5
Overview
These two panels were once a diptych (a painting in two parts) showing Christ crowned with thorns and his mother, the Virgin, grieving (known as the Mater Dolorosa). 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 (Louvre, Paris) was apparently painted in the same workshop, from tracings of the same pattern drawings.
Works in the series
Workshop of Dirk Bouts
This small painting of the sorrowing Virgin once went with another painting in our collection, Christ Crowned with Thorns. They originally made up a diptych, a folding painting in two parts. It was probably intended for private prayer: the Virgin’s grief was intended to inspire empathy in the vie...
Not on display
Workshop of Dirk Bouts
This small picture once made up a diptych (a folding painting in two parts) with another in our collection, the Mater Dolorosa. It was probably intended for private devotion: Christ’s pain was meant to inspire empathy in the viewer, who was encouraged to meditate upon his suffering as a means of...
Not on display
Related works
Christ wears the rich cloak and the crown of thorns in which, according to the Gospels, he was dressed before he was crucified. But the wounds of the Passion (his torture and crucifixion) indicate that he has already died and been resurrected.Bouts brings Jesus’s torments vividly to life, showing...
Not on display
A fair-haired man stands in an interior, gazing past us. Through the window behind him we can see a landscape with a church in the distance. The date on the back wall makes this the earliest datable – and in fact the only dated painting – by Bouts, and the earliest dated portrait to include an op...
Not on display
Christ’s body, wrapped in a white shroud, is being placed in a tomb by his grief-stricken family and followers. His mother Mary, clasping his wrist, seems on the edge of collapse; John the Evangelist holds her up. Behind them are Mary’s sisters, one wiping tears from her eyes, the other holding h...
Not on display
The Virgin and Christ Child are seen as if at an open window, with the infant perched on the sill. Mary gazes lovingly at her son and offers him her breast; images of the Virgin breastfeeding emphasised Christ’s humanity and vulnerability.Small religious panels like this were used as an aid to pr...
Not on display
Workshop of Dirk Bouts
The Virgin and Child are shown as an affectionate mother and laughing infant. Christ holds an apple, alluding to the fruit with which Eve tempted Adam in the biblical story of the Garden of Eden, leading to the Fall of Man.Devotion to Mary was an important part of a great flowering of private rel...
Not on display
Workshop of Dirk Bouts
The Virgin, holding the infant Christ, sits on a marble throne with a luxurious material stretched across it – a cloth of honour, something often hung behind medieval royalty. Two saints stand with them, and particular symbols tell us who they are. On the Virgin’s right is Saint Peter, a key peep...
Not on display