Collection Charles II de Bourbon-Parme, roi d'Etrurie, duc de Lucques et duc de Parme, n° 68, un cachet au dos de l'œuvre ;

Vente anonyme ; Londres, Christie's, 21 juin 1968, n° 76 (comme le maître de la Légende de sainte Catherine) ;

Vente anonyme ; Londres, Sotheby's, 11 décembre 1974, n° 64 (comme Vrancke van der Stockt) ;

Collection Roy Mills, New York, en 1976 ;

Collection particulière, Espagne, en 1977;

Galerie De Jonckheere, Paris ;

Acquis auprès de cette dernière par les parents des actuels propriétaires en 2007 ;

Collection particulière, France 

Elisa Bermejo, La pintura de los primitivos Flamencos en España, I, Madrid, 1980, p. 144-145, n° 12-14, ill. 134-138

Brigitte de Patoul et Roger van Schoute (sous la dir.), Les Primitifs flamands et leur temps, Louvain-la-Neuve, 1994, p. 528-531

Lorne Campbell, National Gallery Catalogue. The fifteenth Century. Netherlandish School, Londres, 1998, p. 421, fig. 19 (pour La découverte de la Vraie Croix par Sainte Hélène)  

Barbara Baert, A Heritage of Holy Wood. The Legend of the True Cross in text and images, Leyde, 2004, p. 280-281, fig. 74  

Till-Holger Borchert, “A little known Triptych (?) with the Descent from the Cross, formerly in the Collection of the Duke of Lucca”, in Florence Gombert et Didier Martens (sous la dir.), Le Maître au Feuillage brodé. Démarches d’artistes et méthodes d’attribution d'œuvres à un peintre anonyme des anciens Pays-Bas du XVe siècle. Colloque organisé par le Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, 23-24 juin 2005, Lille, 2007, p. 55-67

Stephan Kemperdick et Jochen Sander, in cat. Frankfurt, Städel Museum and Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, 2008-2009, The master of Flémalle and Roger van der Weyden, p. 347-348, ill. 187-188

Katrin Dyballa et Stephan Kemperdick, Netherlandish and French paintings 1400-1480: critical catalogue for the Gemäldegalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Petersberg, Berlin, 2024, p. 300 (copie 7), p. 311-312, p. 313, fig. 28.12, p. 382-383, fig. 35.11 

Widely published, this exceptional polyptych has long attracted the interest of many researchers and specialists in 15th-century Flemish painting, who have noted and commented on it on a number of occasions. In terms of the quality of its execution, its very fine state of conservation and its provenance, this work is an outstanding example of what was being produced in late 15th-century Brussels in the wake of the famous painter Rogier van der Weyden.

According to Dr Stephan Kemperdick and Till-Holger Borchert before him, the panels were originally presented differently. Considering the subject of the Cross to be central to the development of the compositions, they suggested the following reconstruction: scenes from the True Cross, with Helena and Heraclius, would have formed the inner faces of the wings, flanking the central Deposition in order to evoke how the Cross became the True Cross. In this way, the central image would show the eschatological function of the True Cross through the act of crucifixion, while the wings would evoke the legend of the True Cross. The other two scenes, Augustus and the Sibyl and the Magi, refer to the Nativity of Christ, not the Cross, so they would have been placed on the outer face of the wings - as is logical - since the Incarnation is the beginning of the story of Salvation, while the Crucifixion and Deposition are the end. This suggested arrangement would also allow for the continuation of the landscape on the three panels inside the altarpiece. While the ensemble as it stands today is remarkable and could well correspond to three different major liturgical moments (the Descent from the Cross corresponds to the Passion Prayers, the Legend of the True Cross to the Offices of the Cross, and the depictions of the Vision of the Emperor Augustus and the Vision of the Magi could be presented in the context of Advent celebrations), it is also possible, according to Till-Holger Borchert, that these panels could be elements of a larger polyptych, with additional panels that remain to be discovered.

It was in the 19th century that the work attracted the attention of Charles II, duke of Lucca and Parma, who appears to have been an enlightened admirer of the Flemish Primitives, since he also owned Jan van Eyck’s the Virgin of Lucca, now in the collection of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt (1). 

It is clear that our painter was following in the footsteps of Rogier van der Weyden, whose vocabulary he mastered perfectly. Although it is certain that Vrancke van der Stockt was active in Brussels, there is no tangible evidence in the sources to formally attribute a particular painting or drawing to him, which is typically the case for works from this period. Vrancke van der Stockt is, however, well documented in the Brussels Archives and appears there as early as 23 March 1445 (2). On that date, his father Jan van der Stockt signed a deed before a notary, bequeathing his entire studio, including eighteen paintings, and all of its material and furniture, to his son. Other sources reveal Vranck van der Stockt’s artistic production and social status. In 1466-1467, among other designs created for various objects, he designed a chandelier in the shape of the Tree of Jesse. In 1468, he took part in the production of an ephemeral decor for the entrance and wedding of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York in Bruges. The artist is also said to have provided models for tapestries and embroidery. A prosperous painter, his estate lists several houses in Brussels as well as land, woods and meadows in Brussels, Lennik and Wambeek. Buried in the church of Sainte-Gudule, on his death he bequeathed all of his painting materiel to his two artist sons, Bernaert and Machiel.

Despite an obvious stylistic relationship and personal links attested by the archives, there is no evidence to suggest that Vrancke van der Stockt worked as an assistant in Rogier van der Weyden's workshop. A document dated 6 September 1453 shows that Vrancke van der Stockt was present as a witness, alongside Rogier van der Weyden, at the signing of the marriage contract between the silversmith Jan Offhuys de Oude and his wife Alice Cats. The ceremony took place at Rogier van der Weyden's home in the Cantersteen district (3). Although historiography has sometimes seen this as proof of the professional relationship between the two artists, it is more reasonable to believe that Vrancke’s father, whose workshop he eventually took over, would have trained Vrancke as a painter.

To produce our polyptych, Vrancke van der Stockt would have required the help of his workshop, which included his two sons, as attested by certain differences in execution between the central panel and the side panels. Till-Holger Borchert suggests the involvement of an anonymous master, known as the Master of the Legend of Saint Barbara, based on stylistic comparisons with panels depicting the legend of this saint in the Chapel of the Holy Blood in Bruges and in the collections of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Belgium located in Brussels.

The artistic personality of Vrancke van der Stockt and the works that can be attributed to him remain the subject of much debate. Georges Hulin van Loo was the first to associate the name of Vrancke van der Stockt with the Redemption triptych in the Prado Museum in Madrid (fig. 5), which is derived in its composition from Rogier van der Weyden's altarpiece of the Seven Sacraments in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp (4). From this first work, other paintings were added to the Vrancke van der Stockt corpus, such as a Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple (collection of the Monastary of San Lorenzo de El Escorial), a Last Judgement (Valencia), a Resurrection of Lazarus (Madrid), a Pietà (Mayer van den Bergh museum in Antwerp), an Annunciation (Musée de Dijon), a Descent from the Cross (Alte Pinakothek, Munich) and possibly the Lamentation of Bishop Jean Chevrot (The Hague). Fritz Koreny also grouped together a set of drawings under the name of Vrancke van der Stockt in the belief that he recognised his monogram on several works whose style was similar to that of the circle of Rogier van der Weyden (5). Bart Fransen and Stefaan Hautekeete have since revised this attribution, demonstrating that it was in fact the letter R that could be read as the mark of Rogier or his workshop (6). Today, several art historians refuse to see Vrancke van der Stockt as being the Master of the Prado Redemption and retain this name to refer to a larger body of work that can be assembled around the triptych at the Prado (7). 

From a purely stylistic point of view, the borrowings from the work of Rogier van der Weyden are many and varied. The two compositions on the inner wings of our triptych, The Tiburtine Sybil announcing the birth of Christ and The Vision of the Magi, are almost literal reproductions of compositions by Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1400-1464) from the triptych known as the Bladelin Altarpiece in the collection of the Berlin Museum (no. 535) (fig. 1). However, the landscape in the background has been altered, as has the position of two of the Magi. The dog in the vision of the Emperor Augustus is also a Rogerian motif found in another altarpiece, that of Saint Columba in Munich (Alte Pinakothek, no. WAF 1189, fig. 2). This altarpiece also inspired the figure on the left of The Finding of the True Cross by Saint Helena.

The scene depicting the Tiburtine Sibyl can also be linked to another work in the collections of the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (no. 555 fig. 3) attributed to a follower of Rogier van der Weyden (possibly the Master of the Legend of Saint Catherine). Katryn Dyballa and Stephan Kemperdick have suggested that our painter worked directly from this model and not from the Bladelin altarpiece, since the same dog can be seen in both works, as well as the same floor tiles. Finally, as Elisa Bermejo pointed out in 1980, the central descent from the cross can be compared with a work attributed to a follower of Rogier van der Weyden, dated 1460-1470, which is also in the collections of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich (inv. no. 1398), although the two works cannot in all likelihood be derived from the same model. However, in his essay on our triptych, Till-Holger Borchert suggests that they may have been produced by the same workshop.

In their recent catalogue regarding collections of fifteenth-century Flemish paintings, Katrin Dyballa and Stephan Kemperdick have stylistically compared the virgins on the panel depicting the Last Judgement in the Berlin Gemäldegalerie (no. 600 fig. 4), given with caution to both a master in Brussels and the Master of the Prado Redemption, with the depiction of Helena and the True Cross on our panel, bringing new elements to help identify the painter.

Recently, Katryn Dyballa and Stephan Kemperdick suggested that our triptych could be by yet another anonymous master in Brussels, the Master of the Legend of Saint Catherine, whom some art historians have linked to Pieter van der Weyden, Rogier's painter son. This is an attribution that had already been suggested by Max J. Friedländer in 1956. This research, which is inherent to the discipline of art history, and the fascinating scientific questions it raises, shows just how exceptional this work is for the history of late fifteenth-century painting in Brussels. Its forthcoming sale will undoubtedly fuel numerous discussions that will bring together enlightened amateurs and professionals seeking to better understand the pictorial production of this period.

We would like to thank Peter van den Brink for confirming the authenticity of the painting on 2 July 2024.