The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist

Artist Hendrick Terbrugghen (Dutch, 1588 - 1629)

Date1620s

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsOverall: 58 1/2 × 34 3/8 inches (148.59 × 87.31 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number64-7

Signedl.l. (monogram): HTB 162[2?]

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionLeft, facing right, standing, barefooted, bearded man wearing black armor, segmented red beret, red sleeve, white tights torn at ankles, blue tie-garters at knees, full white sash, empty scabbard, left rear, sword in lower right hand, holding in upraised left, by hair, long-tressed severed head of a beak-nosed man above silver basin held in right hand of white-bloused, green-skirted figure, cut off by right margin; center, bareheaded figure of blue-shirted boy loosens bonds on greenish-tinted hands behind back of gray-clad, greenish-tinted barefooted man kneeling, body resting on block, right. Right rear, facing left, standing figure of white-bearded man in turban holding thin brown cross aloft.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

17^th Century Art in Europe, The Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1938, no. 163.

Works of Art from Midland Houses, City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England, July 18–September 6, 1953, no. 110.

Hendrick Terbruggen in America, Dayton Art Institute, October 15–November 28, 1965; Baltimore Museum of Art, December 19, 1965–January 30, 1966, no. 1.

Caravaggio and His Followers, Cleveland Museum of Art, October 27, 1971–January 2, 1972, no. 66.

Gallery Label

Saint John the Baptist, who was cousin to Christ and prophesied his coming, publicly condemned the wickedness of King Herod. In reprisal, the king's wife and her daughter, Salome, conspired to have Saint John executed. Here, Terbrugghen recreates the moment following the saint's beheading. The executioner holds the Baptist's severed head as a servant boy bends to untie his lifeless hands. Since the painting is a fragment, only Salome's hand and arm can be seen holding the plate on which the Baptist's head is about to be placed. Like Baburen, whose Christ Crowned with Thorns hangs nearby, Terbrugghen visited Italy where Caravaggio's realism (see Saint John the Baptist, this gallery) decisively influenced his work. In contrast to Baburen, Terbrugghen chose muted colors that create a greater sense of harmony and mystery.

Provenance

Possibly Abraham Peronneau, Amsterdam, by 1687 [1];

Henry Anson-Horton (d. 1925), Catton Hall, Derbyshire, by 1925;

By descent to Colonel George H. Anson (d. 1957), Catton Hall, Derbyshire, 1925-1957;

By descent to his nephew, David Neilson, Catton Hall, Derbyshire, 1957;

With S & R Rosenberg, Ltd., London, stock no. 1159, on joint account with M. H. Drey, Ltd., London and Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London, June 17-August 5, 1957 [2];

Purchased from S & R Rosenberg by Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York, stock no. 3466, on joint account with Pinakos, Inc., New York, August 5, 1957 [3];

Purchased from Rosenberg & Stiebel by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1964.

NOTES:

[1] Leonard J. Slatkes and Wayne Franits, The Paintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen: 1588-1629 (Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 2007): 121.

[2] Each of the dealers owned a 1/3 share. Frick Art Reference Library, New York, MS.065 Rosenberg & Stiebel Archive, Sales and Inventory Records, S. & R. Rosenberg, Ltd., Stock Book, 1936-1961, copy in Nelson-Atkins curatorial file.

[3] Frick Art Reference Library, New York, MS.065 Rosenberg & Stiebel Archives, Sales and Inventory Records – Card Files, copy in Nelson-Atkins curatorial file.

Published References

C. H. Collins Baker, “Hendrik TerBrugghen and Plein Air,” The Burlington Magazine 40, no. 289 (April 1927): 201.

17^th Century Art in Europe: An illustrated Souvenir of the Exhibition of 17^th Century Art in Europe at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1938, exh. cat. (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1938), 41, (repro.).

Catalogue of the Exhibition of 17^th Century Art in Europe, exh. cat. (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1938), 77.

G. Fell, “Seventeenth–Century Paintings at the Royal Academy of Arts–II,” Connoisseur 101 (1938): 117, (repro).

Vitale Bloch, “Il Caravaggeschi a Utrecht e Anversa,” Paragone 33 (September 1952): 15, 17, (repro).

Roberto Longhi, “Review of Caravaggio en de Nederlanden,” Paragone 33 (1952): 54.

Benedict Nicolson, “An Unknown Terbrugghen,” The Burlington Magazine 95 (1953): 52.

Works of Art from Midland Houses, exh. cat. (Birmingham, England: City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 1953), 25.

Wolfgang Stechow, “Terbrugghen’s ‘Saint Sebastian’,” The Burlington Magazine 96 (1954): 71.

Benedict Nicolson, “The Rijksmuseum ‘Incredulity’ and Terbrugghen’s Chronology,” The Burlington Magazine 98, no. 637 (April, 1956): 107, 108, 109.

Jean Leymarie, La peinture hollandaise (Geneva, 1956), 70.

Benedict Nicolson, Hendrick Terbrugghen (London: Percy Lund, Humphries and Co., 1958), no. A12, pp. 7,10, 13, 44, 52, 83, 112, 117, (repro).

Eduard Plietzsch, Holländische und flämische Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1960), 144.

J. Richard Judson, “Review of Benedict Nicolson, Hendrick Terbrugghen,” The Art Bulletin 43 (1961): 346.

“Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, January–March, 1964,” Art Quarterly 27, no. 2 (1964): 205, 209, (repro.).

Wolfgang Stechow, “Terbrugghen in America,” Art News 64, no. 6 (October 1965): 47, 49, (repro.).

Leonard J Slatkes and Wolfgang Stechow, eds., Hendrick Terbruggen in America, exh. cat. (Dayton, OH: Dayton Art Institute, 1965), 7, 8, 12–13, 20, (repro.).

Pieter Van Thiel, “De aanbidding der koningen en ander vroeg werk van Hendrick ter Brugghen,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 19 (1971), 101, 107-108, 110, (repro.).

Richard E. Spear, Caravaggio and His Followers, exh. cat. (Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1971), 172, 173, (repro.).

D.S. Pepper, “Caravaggio Riveduto e Correto: La Mostra di Cleveland,” Arte Illustrata 5 (March 1972), 171.

Julius S. Held, “Caravaggio and His Followers,” Art in America 60, no. 3 (May/June 1972): 44, 45, (repro.).

Michael Jaffé, “The Flemish and Dutch Schools,” Apollo 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 508–509, (repro.).

Christopher Wright, The Dutch Painters; 100 Seventeenth Century Masters (Woodbury, NY, 1978), 192.

Benedict Nicolson, The International Caravaggesque Movement: Lists of Pictures by Caravaggio and His Followers throughout Europe from 1590-1650 (Oxford: Phaidon, 1979), 99.

R. Ward Bissell, Orazio Gentileschi and the Poetic Tradition in Caravaggesque Painting (University Park-London, 1981), 65

Albrecht Blankert et al., Holländische Malerei in neuen Licht: Hendrick ter Brugghen und seine Zeitgenossen, exh. cat. (Utrecht: Centraal Museum, 1986), 82, 124, (repro.).

Peter C. Sutton, A Guide to Dutch Art in America (Washington D.C.: The Netherlands – American Amity Trust, 1986), 123–124.

Rüdiger Klessmann, ed., Hendrick ter Brugghen und die Nachfolger Caravaggios in Holland (Braunschweig, 1988), 61, (repro.).

Yoriko Kobayashi-Sato, “Hendrick ter Brugghen’s ‘King David harping Surrounded by Four Angels,” Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie 29 (1988): 7n18.

Benedict Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, ed. Luisa Vertova, 2^nd ed., vol. 1 (Torino: Umberto Allemandi, 1989), 191.

Leonard Slatkes, “Bringing Ter Brugghen and Baburen Up-To-Date,” Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie 37 (1996): 206, (repro.).

Antoni Ziemba, “’Caravaggio und Caravaggisten’. Ausstellungskonzept,” Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie 37, no. 3–4 (1996): 209, (repro.).

Dennis P. Weller, Sinners and Saints, Darkness and Light: Caravaggio and His Dutch and Flemish Followers, exh. cat. (Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1998), 215, (repro.).

Leonard J. Slatkes and Wayne Franits, The Paintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen, 1588-1629: Catalogue Raisonné (Amsterdam, John Benjamins, 2007), no. A32, pp. 121 – 122, 176, 209, 246, 268, 336, (repro.).

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