The Knighting of Saint Martin by the Emperor Constantine

Artist Bernard van Orley (Netherlandish, ca. 1483 - 1541)

Dateca. 1514

MediumOil on wood panel

DimensionsUnframed: 27 3/8 × 29 15/16 inches (69.53 × 76.02 cm)
Framed: 35 3/8 × 37 3/4 × 3 3/4 inches (89.85 × 95.89 × 9.53 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through the bequest of Henry J. Haskell

Object number53-39

SignedNone

InscribedInscribed along the hem of Constantine's tunic: CESAER OCTAV[I]AS

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionBeneath carved stone baldachin, right, and red canopy, standing bearded figure of emperor, dressed in ermine-trimmed garments, knighting, with sword in right hand, kneeling St. Martin in brocade and armor. Plumed helmet and gauntlets on floor, foreground. Left, two attendants; right, two men. Left foreground, two dogs in courtyard and beyond before a medieval stepped-gable house, a kneeling figure and a seated figure. Trees in background beyond walls.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Cinq siècles d’art, Exposition Internationale et Universelle de Bruxelles, Brussels, May 24-October 19, 1935, no. 104.

Flemish Primitives, M. Knoedler and Company, New York, April 13-May 9, 1942, unnumbered.

The Backus Collection, Schaeffer Galleries, New York, November 23-December 20, 1948, nos. 3 and 4.

Masterpieces of the Month, The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, MO, February 1954, no cat.

Bernard van Orley: Brussels and the Renaissance, BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, February 20-May 26, 2019.

Gallery Label

Like the Joos van Cleve Madonna and Child nearby, this painting reflects an Italian Renaissance influence. This is evident in the forceful, clear narrative which is split into two parts by the archway, and in that structure's Italianate, decorative motif. Saint Martin served in the Roman army but later converted to Christianity and became Bishop of Tours in France. The scene under the arch depicts the saint as a centurion being knighted by the first Christian emperor Constantine. To the left he removes the boots of a servant, in an act of humility. The two dogs reflect Saint Martin's power over animals; the saint's name used to be evoked to stop dogs from barking.

Provenance

Commissioned from the artist by Abbot Jacques Coëne (1466-1542) for the Benedictine Abbey Church, Marchiennes, 1514;

Charles X (Charles Gustavus of Sweden, 1622-1660), Chateau de Ris Orangis, by 1660;

Pineau collection, Paris;

By inheritance to his nephew, Jacques de Chefdebien (1867-1940), Paris;

Possibly with F. Kleinberger Galleries, Paris [1];

Mortimer L. Schiff (1877-1931), New York, by 1930-1931;

By descent to his son, John Mortimer Schiff (1904-1987), New York, 1931-June 24, 1938;

Purchased at his sale, Important Pictures and Drawings by Old Masters, being a part of the collection formed by the late Mortimer L. Schiff, Esq. , Christie, Manson and Woods, London, June 24, 1938, lot 77, by the dealer Frank Partridge, London, 1938;

LeRoy M. Backus (1879-1948), Seattle and New York, by June 15, 1943-1948 [2];

Backus estate, 1948-1953 [3];

Purchased from the Backus estate, through Schaeffer Galleries, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1953.

NOTES:

[1] According to a handwritten annotation in a copy of the sale catalogue for Important Pictures and Drawings by Old Masters, being a part of the collection formed by the late Mortimer L. Schiff, Esq. , Christie, Manson and Woods, London, June 24, 1938, at the Frick Art Reference Library. No evidence of Kleinberger’s association with the painting has been found in the Kleinberger Galleries Records, Metropolitan Museum of Art, European Paintings Department, New York.

[2] The painting was documented as in the Backus collection when it was sent to William Suhr for conservation in 1943. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, William Suhr Papers, box 110, account ledgers.

[3] Manson F. Backus II, executor of the Leroy M. Backus estate, entered into a consignment agreement with Schaeffer Galleries December 10, 1948.

Published References

M.J. Friedlӓnder, Die altniederlӓndische Malerei, vol. 8, Jan Gossart, Bernart van Orley (Berlin: Paul Cassirer, 1930), no. 92, pp. 85-87, 168, 182, 193, (repro.).

Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, eds., Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 26 (Leipzig: Verlag von E.A. Seeman, 1932), 49.

G. de Tervarent, “Les sources littéraires de van Orley: Légende dorée et vie du bienheureux Martin,” Revue Belge d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art 3 (1933): 19-20, (repro.).

Cinq siècles d’art. I: Peintures Art Ancien Bruxellois et Sections Étrangères, exh. cat. (Brussels: Nouvelle Société d’Éditions, 1935), 50-51, (repro.).

S. Hartveld, “Valentin van Orley,” Burlington Magazine 69, nos. 400-405 (December 1936): 264, 269, as “Valentin van Orley.”

Jan Lauts, “The Schiff Collection at Auction: A Famous American Collection in the London Saleroom,” Art News 36, no. 36 (June 4, 1938): 9.

“Englischer Kunstmarkt: USA. Besitz auf Londoner Versteigerungen,” Weltkunst 12, nos. 24/25 (June 19, 1938): 3.

Catalogue of Important Pictures and Drawings by Old Masters Being Part of the Collection of Mortimer L. Schiff, Esq., Sold by the Order of John Mortimer Schiff Esq., (London: Christie, Manson and Woods, June 24, 1938), 28.

Tancred Borenius, “Die Auktion der Kunstsammlungen Mortimer L. Schiff,” Pantheon 22 (July-December 1938): 259.

“The Art News of London,” Art News 36, no. 38 (July 16, 1938): 18, 24.

“Gallery Changes,” Gallery News (The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) vol. 7, no. 6 (November 1941): 6, as “Hausbuch Master.”

Guy de Tervarent, Les énigmes de l’art du Moyen Âge, vol. 2 (Paris: Les Éditions d’art et d’histoire, 1941), 55-56, (repro.).

Flemish Primitives: An Exhibition Organized by the Belgian Government through the Belgian Information Center New York, exh. cat. (New York: Belgian Information Center, 1942), 77, (repro.).

Charles Dessart, ed., Bernard van Orley, 1488-1541, exh. cat. (Brussels: Société Royale d'Archéologie de Belgique, 1943), 97-98, 100.

Ludwig Baldass, “Die Entwicklung des Bernart van Orley,” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 13 (1944): 151-56.

“The Backus Collection,” Schaffer Galleries Bulletin, no. 6 (November 1948): unpaginated, (repro.).

Kansas City Star, November 29, 1953, clipping, NAMA Curatorial file.

“Recent Acquisitions-North Loan Gallery,” Gallery News (The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) vol. 21, no. 3 (December 1953): unpaginated, (repro.).

“Masterpiece of the Month,” Gallery News (The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) vol. 21, no. 5 (February 1954): unpaginated, (repro.).

Louis Réau, ed., Iconographie l’art chrétien, vol. 3, Iconographie des Saints (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1958), 906.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 80, 260, (repro.).

Leo van Puyvelde, La peinture flamande au siècle de Bosch et Brueghel (Paris: Elsevier, 1962), 320.

Luis Reis-Santos, Masterpieces of Flemish Painting of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries in Portugal (Lisbon, 1962), 99-100. As c. 1513.

Shirley Glubok, Knights in armor (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), 6-7, (repro.).

Max J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. 8, Jan Gossart and Bernart van Orley (Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff, 1972), no. 92, pp. 54-55, 103, (repro.).

Jan Gerrit van Gelder, “Scorel, Mor, Bellegambe un Orley in Marchiennes,” Oud-Holland 87, no. 4 (1973): 170-72, (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, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 97, 257, (repro.).

The collection of the late Dr. Hans Wetzlar (Amsterdam: Sotheby Mak Van Waay, June 9, 1977), 87.

Frank Davis, “Talking about Salesrooms: Raphael’s Flemish Disciple,” Country Life (September 1, 1977): 526.

Colin Eisler, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian (Oxford: Phaidon, 1977), 81, (repro.).

Egbert Haverkamp Begemann, ed., Wadsworth Atheneum Paintings, Catalogue I: The Netherlandish and the German-Speaking Countries, Fifteenth-Nineteenth Centuries (Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1978), 170.

John David Farmer, “Bernard van Orley of Brussels” (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1981), 99-103, 119n32, (repro.).

John Oliver Hand and Martha Wolff, Early Netherlandish Paintings: The Collections of the National Gallery of Art, Systematic Catalogue (Cambridge: University Press, 1986), 222.

Guy Bauman and Walter A. Liedtke, Flemish Paintings in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America (Antwerp: Fonds Mercator, 1992), 355, (repro.).

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 150, (repro.).

Lars Hendrikman, “Christiaan II als Scandinavische Constantijn,” Millennium, no. 1 (2001): 56n122.

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), 11, 12, 19, 29, 168, 199-216, 270, (repro.).

Old Master & British Paintings evening sale (London: Sotheby’s, July 7, 2010), 12, 14, 15, (repro.).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.