The Artist: The little that we know about Albert van Ouwater is due to Karel van Mander’s
Schilder-Boek. For Van Mander, a Haarlem resident who established a painting academy there in 1587, Albert van Ouwater was a pupil of Jan van Eyck.[1] Considered the founder of the Dutch school of painting, his successors were thought to be Geertgen tot Sint Jans (Ouwater’s pupil), Dieric Bouts, and Jan Mostaert [2]. Van Mander may also be credited with identifying the only surviving work by Ouwater, namely the
Raising of Lazarus, which ultimately was acquired by the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.[3]
However, there is no archival trace of Albert van Ouwater in Haarlem.[4] Nevertheless, works by other Haarlem masters clearly reflect Ouwater’s
Raising of Lazarus, which must have been made for a site in that town. As Stephan Kemperdick has pointed out, a
Raising of Lazarus in a Haarlem Book of Hours of about 1470–80 (private collection) by the so-called Jason Master assimilated several motifs from Ouwater’s panel painting, namely, the figures of Lazarus, Mary Magdalen, and those behind the grate in the background.[5] Furthermore, the same subject is rendered by Ouwater’s pupil, Geertgen tot Sint Jans, in a painting of about 1480–90 (Musée du Louvre, Paris) set out of doors but with several references to the Berlin panel.[6] This all suggests that Ouwater was indeed working in Haarlem around the 1460s and 1470s.
Although nothing is documented about Ouwater’s origins and training, his name indicates that he probably came from the town of Oudewater. A strong case has been made for the likelihood that Ouwater spent time in the southern Netherlands and quite possibly trained with another artist from Haarlem, namely Diereic Bouts, when the latter was already settled in Leuven by 1448, working there until his death in 1475.[7] Kemperdick cited in particular Ouwater’s likely familiarity with Jan van Eyck’s
Madonna of Canon van der Paele of 1436 (Groeningemuseum, Bruges) and Rogier van der Weyden’s
Exhumation of Saint Hubert of about 1437–40 (National Gallery, London) for the architecture and setting of the
Raising of Lazarus. Furthermore, he noted specific comparisons between figures in the
Raising of Lazarus with those in Dieric Bouts’s
Erasmus Triptych in the Collegiate Church of Sint-Peter in Leuven from the 1460s, a comparison supported by Weniger who noted similarities in both in the painting technique of brocade garments.[8] Indeed, there is a high probability that several of the paintings traditionally attributed to Bouts are closer to Ouwater’s style and technique in the
Raising of Lazarus; in addition to the
Erasmus Triptych, these include the Marian Triptych of about 1452–60 (Museo del Prado, Madrid), and perhaps the
Descent from the Cross Triptych of about 1450–58 in the Capilla Real in Granada.[9] These observations concur with Friedländer’s original assumption that Ouwater was a close follower of Bouts.[10] Perhaps the most likely scenario is that Ouwater worked in Bouts’s studio for an unknown period of time, only leaving for Haarlem around the mid-to-late 1460s.
The Painting: This tightly cropped portrait of an elderly cleric wearing a fur-trimmed blue cassock and pleated surplice is a fragment cut from a larger composition, possibly the left side of a single panel or the left wing of a diptych or triptych. The man was presumably a kneeling donor figure within a devotional scene, for the hand of his patron saint and portions of a red garment can be seen at the upper left of the fragment. The saint may have been John the Baptist, who often is represented wearing a red robe. The triangular green form at the lower right may be remnants of the garment of another figure.
There are two engraved copies of this fragment, both of which show the figure in reverse, omit the patron saint, and are identified as representations of Saint Thomas of Canterbury (Thomas Becket, 1118–1170). The version by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677), dated to 1647, shows the subject with praying hands and the sword of his execution thrust into his head (see fig. 1 above). It was engraved when the painting was in the collection of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and Norfolk (d. 1646) and his widow, Lady Alatheia Talbot, Countess of Arundel (d. 1654). The other print, by Lucas Vorsterman (1595–1675), lacks the sword and the praying hands, but also is identified as St. Thomas of Canterbury. It is likely that the patron saint was painted over at one point to give this fragment the appearance of an independent portrait. In his notes on the collection of Charles Howard at Soho Square (1742), the eighteenth-century author and engraver George Vertue (1684–1756) does not mention the hand of the saint in his description of the painting, which may at that time still have been overpainted. However, when Sir George Scharf discussed it in
Artistic and Descriptive Notes of the Most Remarkable Pictures in the British Institution. Exhibition of the Ancient Masters in 1858, the overpaint must have been removed, for the hand of the patron saint touching the man’s head is noted.
The Attribution and Date: As was the case with another remarkable portrait fragment in The Met collections, a
Donor Presented by a Saint (The Met,
32.100.41), this painting was initially attributed to Jan van Eyck when it was listed in the 1655 inventory of the Arundel collection. That attribution persisted into the early twentieth century (Kaemmerer 1898, Weale 1904, 1908, 1910, 1912, Durand-Gréville 1906-07, Lambotte 1906). Friedländer (1906) was the first to reject the attribution to Van Eyck, later in 1925 suggesting Aelbert van Ouwater instead, by comparing it to the artist’s only documented work, the
Raising of Lazarus of about 1465–70 (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin; fig. 2). This attribution has been widely accepted (see References), with only a few notable exceptions (Eisler “only remotely plausible” 1960, and Campbell 1981).
More recently, the works of the early Dutch masters have been reconsidered through various monographs, exhibitions, and the technical examination of selected paintings.[11] Especially helpful for The Met’s painting has been the technical study of the Berlin
Raising of Lazarus.[12] Thus, it has been possible to compare details of painting technique and handling between The Met fragment and the Berlin painting. Infrared reflectography of The Met’s portrait reveals some underdrawing in the facial features and demonstrates that the entire head was shifted slightly to the left and tilted upward in the painted layers (see Technical Notes). Such minimal shifts are also evident in the figures of the
Raising of Lazarus.[13]
Moreover, with the use of high-resolution images of the paint surfaces of the two works, it has become manifestly clear that The Met’s fragment is by Ouwater. As has been noted previously, but often with some reservations (see References), The Met’s portrait is especially close in style to the head of Saint Peter in the Berlin painting (fig. 3). In both, the artist has paid particular attention to the aged qualities of the donor’s skin, in the radiating wrinkles around his proper right eye and the furrows of his brow that are depicted with a certain graphic exaggeration, as if etched into the flesh. The set gazes of the men, seemingly mesmerized by figures or actions taking place at their left, is depicted in the same manner in both faces. Almond-shaped eye sockets, pink-rimmed at their lower edges, barely contain the bulging eyes. The catchlights in each man’s eyes are in the same exact position at the upper left of the iris, while the lower part of the iris appears translucent. The ears are constructed in precisely the same way. The Met portrait’s physiognomy is even more individualized than that of Saint Peter, who is a standardized and idealized type. Although the addition of other works to the oeuvre of Albert van Ouwater remains highly debatable (see Châtelet 1981), at least The Met fragment joins the
Raising of Lazarus as the two benchmarks of the artist’s works. The close relationship between the two suggests a similar date of about 1465–70.
Maryan W. Ainsworth 2023
[1] Karel van Mander,
Het Schilder-boek, Haarlem, 1604, critical edition by H. Miedema,
Karel van Mander. The lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters, Doornspijk, 1994, vol. 1, fol. 205v., p. 80; vol. 2, p. 260.
[2] Van Mander 1604/Miedema 1994, vol. 1, fol. 205v., pp. 80f; vol. 2, 1995, p. 260; see also Friedländer 1967, pp. 34 –37; Châtelet 1981, pp. 63 –74; Catheline Périer-d’Ieteren,
Dieric Bouts, Brussels, 2006, pp. 27 –31; Friso Lammertse in Friso Lammertse and Jeroen Giltaij, eds., exh. cat.,
Schilderkunst van de late Middeleeuwen, Voege Hollanders, exh, cat., Museum Boymans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2008, pp. 63–66 (with references to previous literature).
[3] For the provenance and further information, see Katrin Dyballa in Katrin Dyballa and Stephan Kemperdick,
Niederländische und französische Malerei 1400 –1480. Wissenschaftlicher Bestandskatalog der Gemäldegalerie SMB, Petersberg 2023, no. 38.
[4] See Châtelet (1960, p. 65, fig. 1, p. 73) for bringing to light the mis-transcription by Adriaam van der Willingen of a document thought to be related to Ouwater in Haarlem.
[5] Stephan Kemperdick, “Albert van Ouwater: The Raising of Lazarus,”
Oud Holland 123, no. 3/4 (2010), p. 238.
[6] Kemperdick 2010, p. 239; see also Katrin Dyballa 2023, no. 38.
[7] M. J. Friedländer,
Die altniederlädische Malerei, vol. 3, Berlin, 1925, p. 57; see especially Kemperdick 2010, p. 246ff.; Matthias Weniger, “Überwunden, unverantwortlich? Fragen zur Eigenhändigkeit bei Bouts und Ouwater,“ in
Bouts Studies, Proceedings of the International Colloquium (Leuven, 26 –28 November 1998), Leuven/Paris/Sterling, 2001, pp. 223 –42.
[8] Kemperdick 2010, pp. 246 –47; Weniger 2001, pp. 227 –28.
[9] Stephan Kemperdick, “Aelbert van Ouwaters ‘Aufweckung des Lazarus‘ und der Dirk Bouts zugeschriebene ‘Marienaltar‘ des Prado,“ in
Bouts Studies (note 7), pp. 72 –87; Kemperdick 2010, p. 248.
[10] Friedländer 1925, p. 57.
[11] See Châtelet 1981 and Lammertse 2008.
[12] I am most grateful to Stephan Kemperdick and Katrin Dyballa for sharing details of their study of Albert van Ouwater’s
Raising of Lazarus for their forthcoming catalogue. See Katrin Dyballa in 2023, no. 38.
[13] Information kindly shared by Katrin Dyballa and Stephan Kemperdick.