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Lot Essay
Long thought to be lost, this newly discovered painting by Frans Francken II constitutes an important addition to the artist’s work. Dr. Ursula Härting, who has endorsed the attribution on the basis of photographs, recognized this example as the prime version of a composition previously known only through an unsigned studio work (Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie, Troyes) and an autograph replica signed ‘FFRANCK’ (private collection, Germany), each of which is executed on a copper support of similar size to the present painting. Dr. Härting suggests that our painting was probably executed shortly after 1610, noting that Francken’s use of gold paint to convey the divine light emanating from the monstrance is a hallmark of his early works.
Francken’s compositional choices likely derive from Raphael’s fresco of this subject in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican. While Francken never traveled to Italy, he no doubt knew the fresco through works like Giorgio Ghisi’s 1552 engraving published by Hieronymous Cock in Francken’s native Antwerp (fig. 1). Like Raphael, Francken devised his composition with two groups of clergy arranged orthogonally as a means of drawing the viewer’s eye to the consecrated host atop the altar. Moreover, Francken adopted the use of the tiled floor to accentuate the sense of recession into depth as well as the central placement of the monstrance, a receptacle in which the consecrated Host is displayed for veneration, above which appear the Holy Spirit, Christ flanked by the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist and God the Father.
The studio painting in Troyes has previously been described as a depiction of Urban IV instituting the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264, with Urban appearing in green wearing the papal tiara and seated on the papal thrown at left (see Tableaux flamands et hollandaise: collections du Musée des beaux-arts de Troyes, Troyes, 1990, p. 76, no. 17). However, it is likelier that he is instead Pope Gregory the Great, one of the four Church Fathers whose iconography traditionally includes the triple tiara surmounted by the papal cross seen here. At least two further Church Fathers are readily identifiable in the group of figures at right. Saint Jerome is seen wearing a red cardinal’s cape and galero accompanied by a lion, whom Jerome is said to have assisted by removing a thorn from his paw. In a show of gratitude, the lion became a lay brother of sorts, doing chores and guarding the monastery. Immediately to Jerome’s left and in conversation with him appears Saint Augustine of Hippo, dressed in green bishop’s vestments and identified by the child with a spoon at his feet. According to legend, Augustine encountered a child attempting to drain the ocean with a seashell, an effort that was said to parallel Augustine’s own futile attempts at understanding the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Traditionally described as a ‘Disputation’, the term is not intended to describe a dispute in the sense of a conflict or logical debate but rather, as Luitpold Dussler pointed out with regard to Raphael’s fresco, ‘affirmare’, an affirmation of the central Catholic belief in transubstantiation which holds that Christ is physically present in the consecrated bread and wine (see L. Dussler, Raphael: A Critical Catalogue of his Pictures, Wall-Paintings and Tapestries, London and New York, 1971, p. 72, under no. 1a). Such a concept would have been of the utmost prescience for Francken and his largely Catholic clientele, for whom the ravages of war induced by sectarian conflict in Post-Tridentine Europe would have been an all-to-recent memory. Only a generation earlier, in 1585, had Spanish forces succeeded in recapturing Antwerp and restoring Catholicism as the official religion after a period of Protestant revolt.
The early provenance for this painting remains to be discovered, but the reverse of the copper panel is inscribed ‘D. Rodriguez’, suggesting that it may well have been in Spain at an early date. Indeed, Francken’s paintings were avidly acquired by early Spanish collectors, among them Philip IV of Spain, who in 1623 purchased for the Torre de la Reina at the Alcázar Palace a pair of paintings depicting the Five Senses on which Francken collaborated (Museo del Prado, Madrid).
We are grateful to Dr. Ursula Härting for her assistance in cataloguing this lot. A copy of her expertise is available upon request.
Francken’s compositional choices likely derive from Raphael’s fresco of this subject in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican. While Francken never traveled to Italy, he no doubt knew the fresco through works like Giorgio Ghisi’s 1552 engraving published by Hieronymous Cock in Francken’s native Antwerp (fig. 1). Like Raphael, Francken devised his composition with two groups of clergy arranged orthogonally as a means of drawing the viewer’s eye to the consecrated host atop the altar. Moreover, Francken adopted the use of the tiled floor to accentuate the sense of recession into depth as well as the central placement of the monstrance, a receptacle in which the consecrated Host is displayed for veneration, above which appear the Holy Spirit, Christ flanked by the Virgin and Saint John the Baptist and God the Father.
The studio painting in Troyes has previously been described as a depiction of Urban IV instituting the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264, with Urban appearing in green wearing the papal tiara and seated on the papal thrown at left (see Tableaux flamands et hollandaise: collections du Musée des beaux-arts de Troyes, Troyes, 1990, p. 76, no. 17). However, it is likelier that he is instead Pope Gregory the Great, one of the four Church Fathers whose iconography traditionally includes the triple tiara surmounted by the papal cross seen here. At least two further Church Fathers are readily identifiable in the group of figures at right. Saint Jerome is seen wearing a red cardinal’s cape and galero accompanied by a lion, whom Jerome is said to have assisted by removing a thorn from his paw. In a show of gratitude, the lion became a lay brother of sorts, doing chores and guarding the monastery. Immediately to Jerome’s left and in conversation with him appears Saint Augustine of Hippo, dressed in green bishop’s vestments and identified by the child with a spoon at his feet. According to legend, Augustine encountered a child attempting to drain the ocean with a seashell, an effort that was said to parallel Augustine’s own futile attempts at understanding the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
Traditionally described as a ‘Disputation’, the term is not intended to describe a dispute in the sense of a conflict or logical debate but rather, as Luitpold Dussler pointed out with regard to Raphael’s fresco, ‘affirmare’, an affirmation of the central Catholic belief in transubstantiation which holds that Christ is physically present in the consecrated bread and wine (see L. Dussler, Raphael: A Critical Catalogue of his Pictures, Wall-Paintings and Tapestries, London and New York, 1971, p. 72, under no. 1a). Such a concept would have been of the utmost prescience for Francken and his largely Catholic clientele, for whom the ravages of war induced by sectarian conflict in Post-Tridentine Europe would have been an all-to-recent memory. Only a generation earlier, in 1585, had Spanish forces succeeded in recapturing Antwerp and restoring Catholicism as the official religion after a period of Protestant revolt.
The early provenance for this painting remains to be discovered, but the reverse of the copper panel is inscribed ‘D. Rodriguez’, suggesting that it may well have been in Spain at an early date. Indeed, Francken’s paintings were avidly acquired by early Spanish collectors, among them Philip IV of Spain, who in 1623 purchased for the Torre de la Reina at the Alcázar Palace a pair of paintings depicting the Five Senses on which Francken collaborated (Museo del Prado, Madrid).
We are grateful to Dr. Ursula Härting for her assistance in cataloguing this lot. A copy of her expertise is available upon request.