Christ Crowned with Thorns
Framed: 15 5/16 × 2 3/4 inches (38.89 × 6.99 cm)
- 106
Ausstellung von Kunstwerken des Mittelalters und der Renaissance aus Berliner Privatbesitz, Kunstgeschichtlichen Gesellschaft, Berlin, May 20-July 3, 1898.
From the Renaissance, The University of Kansas, Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS, April 21–June 20, 1956.
The Waning Middle Ages, The University of Kansas, Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS, November 1–December 1, 1969, no. 29.
Blood & Tears. Albrecht Bouts and the Image of the Passion, Musée national d’histoire et d’art Luxembourg, October 7, 2016–February 12, 2017; Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen, Germany, March 8, 2017–June 11, 2017, no. 28.
Revealing, Reversible, and Resplendent: 15th–17th century Italian and Spanish Textiles ,The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 18–August 18, 2008; February 19–August 18, 2013; January 9–June 16, 2019.
What Lies Beneath: Rediscovering Heironymus Bosch and Aelbrecht Bouts , The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, June 30, 2017–January 6, 2019.
Albrecht Bouts drew upon several visual traditions to create this representation of Jesus. The crown of thorns refers to the episode in the Bible that describes the torture endured by Jesus at the hands of Roman soldiers. The frontal view of his face is based on representations of Veronica’s Veil. Legendary accounts describe how she wiped the bloody face of Jesus with a cloth, which miraculously came to bear his true likeness. Bouts’s empathetic portrayal of Jesus’s agony encourages the devout to embrace his suffering.
Olivier Nicolaus Joseph Merzenich (1804-1890), Cologne, by 1890;
His posthumous sale, Sammlung von Ölgemälden, Kupferstichen und anderen Kunst-Gegenständen aus dem Nachlasse des Herrn Olivier Nicolaus Joseph Merzenich, J. M. Heberle, Cologne, December 12, 1891, lot 32, as by Hugo van der Goes;
Richard von Kaufmann (1849-1908), Berlin, by 1898-1908 [1];
Purchased at his posthumous sale, Die Sammlung Richard von Kaufmann Berlin, Paul Cassirer and Hugo Helbing, Berlin, December 4-5, 1917, no. 74, as by Aelbrecht Bouts, by Julius Böhler (1860-1934), Munich, 1917 [2];
Harry Martin Evans (1859-1939), Pasadena, by 1937-1939 [3];
Inherited by his wife, Mary Ellison Evans (1861-1963) and their daughter, Helen Wheeler (née Evans), Pasadena, 1939-1940;
Given by Evans and Wheeler to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1940.
NOTES:
[1] Richard von Kaufmann lent this painting to the exhibition, Ausstellung von Kunstwerken des Mittelalters und der Renaissance aus Berliner Privatbesitz, Kunstgeschichtlichen Gesellschaft, Berlin, May 20-July 3, 1898.
[2] An annotated catalogue of this sale includes a handwritten notation next to lot 74 that reads “J. Böhler.” However, no record of this painting has been located in the Kunsthandlung Julius Böhler archival records held by the Zentralinstitüt für Kunstgeschichte, Munich and the Bayerisches Wirtschaftsarchiv, Munich, despite the existence of records for at least 25 other works Böhler bought either in full or in part at the von Kaufmann sale. It is possible the catalogue annotation is erroneous, or the painting may have been acquired for the Böhler family’s private collection.
[3] The painting was loaned to the Nelson-Atkins by the Evans family from 1937 to 1940.
Katalog der reichhaltigen, ausgewählten Sammlung von Oelgemälden, Kupferstichen und anderen Kunst-Gegenständen aus dem Nachlasse des Herrn Olivier Nicolaus Joseph Merzenich in Köln (Cologne: W. Hassel, 1891), 7, as by Hugo van der Goes, Schule van Eyck.
Wilhelm von Bode, Ausstellung von Kunstwerken des Mittelalters und der Renaissance: aus Berliner Privatbesitz veranstaltet von der Kunstgeschichtlichen Gesellschaft (Berlin: G. Grote, 1899), 10.
Richard von Kaufmann, Gemälde des XIV-XVI Jahrhunderts aus der Sammlung (Berlin: A. Asher & Co., 1901), vii.
Max J. Friedlander, "De Verzameling von Kaufmann te Berlign,” Onze Kunst 10 (July-December 1906): 32, as probably by A. Bouts.
Wilhelm von Bode and Max Friedländer, Die Sammlung Richard van Kaufmann, vol. 2, Die Niederländischen, Franzosischen und Deutschen Gemälde (Berlin and Munich: Paul Cassirer and Hugo Helbing, 1917), 148, (repro.).
"A Monthly Chronicle,” The Burlington Magazine 32, no. 178 (January 15, 1918): 36.
"Der Kunstmarkt -- von den Versteigerungen: Die Versteigerung der Sammlung von Kaufmann," Der Cicerone: Halbmonatsschrft für die lnteressen des Kunstforschers & Sammlers 10 (1918): 26.
Max J. Friedländer, Die Altniederländische Malerei, vol. 3, Dierick Bouts und Joos van Gent (Berlin: Cassirer, 1925), 118, (repro.), as by A. Bouts.
Letter from Paul Gardner to H.M. Evans, April 3, 1937, NAMA curatorial files.
Wolfgang Schöne, Dieric Bouts und seine Schule (Berlin & Leipzig: Kunstwissenschaft, 1938), 201.
"Special Exhibitions,” Gallery News (The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 7, no. 3 (December 1940): 2.
"Gallery Changes," Gallery News (The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) 7, no. 6 (March 1941): unpaginated.
Charlton Fortune, Notes on Art for Catholics: Based on the Collection of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (Paterson, New Jersey: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1944), 49.
"Restoration, Cleaning of Art Works, Done in Gallery,” Town Magazine (January 9, 1948): 11, (repro.).
Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 259.
Max J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. 3, Dierick Bouts und Joos van Gent (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1968), 40, 67, as by A. Bouts, rather early.
J. L. Schrader, The Waning Middle Ages: an exhibition of French and Netherlandish art from 1350 to 1500, exh. cat. (Lawrence, Kansas: The University of Kansas, Museum of Art, 1969), 33-34, (repro.).
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 257.
Catalogue of Paintings: Thirteenth-Eighteenth Century, trans. Linda Parshall, 2nd. rev. ed. (Berlin-Dahlem: Gemäldegalerie, 1978), 66.
Paul Vandenbroeck, Catalogus Schilderijen 14e en 15e Eeuw (Antwerp: Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, 1985), 62, (repro.).
Maurits Smeyers and Katharina Smeyers, Dirk Bouts (ca. 1410-1475): Een Vlaams primitief te Leuven, exh. cat. (Louvain, Belgium: Peeters, 1998), 408, as by Bouts Group.
Maurits Smeyers, Dirk Bouts, schilder van de stilte (Louvain, Belgium: Davidsfonds, 1998), 104-108, (repro.).
Burton L. Dunbar, The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: German and Netherlandish Paintings, 1450-1600 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2005), 10, 19, 23, 29, 179-188, (repro.).
Catheline Périer-D’ieteren, Dieric Bouts: The Complete Works (Brussels: Mercatorfonds, 2006), 182-183, (repro.).
Valentine Henderiks, “L’Atelier d’Albrecht Bouts et la Production en Série d’œvres de Dévotion Privée,” Revue belge d'archéologie et d'histoire de l'art 78 (2009): 27, 27n25.
Valentine Henderiks, “L’Ecce homo de la collection de Humbeek, une œuvre de l’atelier d’Albrecht Bouts,” Bulletin de l'Institut royal de patrimoine artistique 32 (2009): 166.Valentine Henderiks, Albrecht Bouts (1451/44-1549) (Brussels: Centre d'étude des Primitifs flamands, 2011), no. 15, pp. 112, 235, 280-284, 281, 351, (repro.).
Valentine Henderiks, Blut und Tränen: Albrecht Bouts und das Antlitz der Passion (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2016), 32-33, 98, 122-123, 124-129, (repro.).
MacKenzie Mallon,
“’A Man We Wished to Work With’: The Kunsthandlung Julius Böhler and The
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,” in Cosima Dollansky, et al, eds., Quelle und
Kontext: Objekte, Akteure, Prozesse der Kunsthandlung Julius Böhler (Munch:
Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte, 2025): 238-9, (repro.).
