Christ Crowned with Thorns|Dirk Bouts (follower of) |Search Collection

Updated 24 April 2025

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Dirk Bouts (follower of)

Haarlem, c. 1415 - Leuven, 1475

Christ Crowned with Thorns

Materials and Techniques	oil on panel
Size（cm）	44 x 30.5
Inscriptions	Inscription by a later hand on the lower part of the frame: per via, Atéd[ite] et [vi]dete (overwritten on the half-effaced inscription in capital letters: PERVIA ATED[...] ET VIDETE); on the back of the panel: Esta ymagen, m[and]o, / En su testam[ent]o, A este monas / t[eri]o, de la concepcíon, de / la puebla, la muy ill[ustr]e, señora / doña leonor chacõ partona / y fùdadora, del dicho monast[eri]o / Mandoselas con cõ dicion / que no las puedan dar ni / prestar, y que si las prestarã / las puedan tomar los cleri / gos para la yglesia de es / ta villa
Credit Line	Purchased
Category	Paintings
Collection Number	P.1980-0003

This panel painting with gold background has a semicircular top edge and depicts a half-length image of Christ wearing a scarlet robe with hands clasped relatively high on his chest and crowned with thorns. The Latin inscription on the lower front edge of the frame, which states PER VIA ATENDITE ET VIDETE is the second half of the text of Lamentations 1:12, "Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow." Christ faces forward and his emotive face is inclined towards his right, the viewer's left, with his gaze also turned towards the same direction. These factors indicate that the painting was originally the right painting in a pair or diptych, and it can easily be surmised that the pendant work would have been an image of the Grieving Madonna inscribed with the first half of the text, "is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by" .Here Christ is shown wearing a long-sleeved scarlet robe, with hands clasped in front of his chest. This pose differs from that of the "Ecce Homo" image with his hands widespread, and also diverges from the "Man of Sorrows" image with its lack of his wounds. According to Panofsky, this new type of Christ iconography known as the "Imago Salvatoris Coronati," combining the Salvator Mundi with Christ suffering the Passion, was created by Dirk Bouts. Members of Bouts' studio made a number of copies of this image to be paired with images of the Grieving Madonna. According to Schöne, this painting is one of the best replicas of the original Bouts painting thought to have been created around 1450. The red-eyed figure of Christ, crying as he suffers, combined with the crying figure of the Madonna reflects the careful finishing of details and the sentimentalism-laden religious sensibility characteristic of Bouts and early Flemish painting.(Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no. 7)

Provenance

Doña Leonor Chacón (according to an old inscription on the reverse); by whom given to the Monasterio de la Concepción, La Puebla de Montalbán; Joachim Cabot I Rovira (1861-1951), Barcelona; W. Simonsen, São Paulo; K. Gratwohl, Zürich-Erlenbach; Sotheby Parke Bernet, London; purchased by the NMWA, 1980.

Exhibition History

1957: Dieric Bouts, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles, 0 1957 - 0 1958, Museum Prinsenhof, Delft, cat. no. 22, repr.
1996: The Crossing Visions: European and Modern Japanese Art from the Collections of The National Museum of Western Art & The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 20 July 1996 - 8 September 1996, cat. no. 57
2014: Voices Calling from the Unusual: Hirano Keiichiro's Selection of Western Art Masterpieces, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 8 April 2014 - 15 June 2014, cat. no. 25
2014: The Rings from The Hashimoto Collection of The National Museum of Western Art, The National Museum of Western Art, 8 July 2014 - 15 September 2014, cat. no. 156
2016: Sacred and Secular: Israhel van Meckenem & Early German Engraving, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 9 July 2016 - 19 September 2016

Bibliography

1938: Schöne, Wolfgang. Dieric Bouts und seine Schule. Berlin/Leipzig, 1938, p. 129, no. 19A, repr. fig. 48-b.
1944: Michel, Edouard. L'école flamande du XVe siècle au Musée du Louvre. Bruxelles, 1944, p. 94.
1953: Davies, Martin. The National Gallery, vol. 1. Antwerpen, 1953, (Les Primitifs Flamands, I. Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pays-Bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle, no. 3), p. 34.
1957: Baudoin, Frans. Dieric Bouts (exh. cat.). Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles; Museum Prinsenhof, Delft, 1957-58, pp. 66-67.
1961: Eisler, Colin Tobias. New England Museums. Antwerpen, 1961, (Les Primitifs Flamands, I. Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pays-Bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle, no. 4), p. 59.
1981: Kanbara, Masaaki. Dieric Bouts "Christ Crowned with Thorns ", Fukushima Prefsctual Museum of Art, Museum News, no. 15, 1981, pp. 5-7.
1982: Chronique des Arts. Gazette des Beaux-Arts. ser. 6, tome 99, March 1982, p. 72, no. 381, repr.
1982: Maekawa, Seiro. Ecrin. Arts And Monuments Of The World. No. 10, Tokyo, 1982, pp. 36-38, repr.
1982: Annual Bulletin of the National Museum of Western Art. No. 15 (1980), 1982, Mayekawa, Seiro. On the New Acquisitions 1980. pp. 8-12, Catalogue of the New Acquisitions 1980. pp. 22, 24, repr.
1983: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1983 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 4, repr.
1989: Kobayashi-Sato, Yoriko. Catalogue of Dutch and Flemish Paintings in Japan I. Annual Report Bridgestone Museum of Art & Ishibashi Museum of Art. no. 37 (1988), 1989, p. 37, no. 2, repr.
1989: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1989 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 4, repr.
1990: Catalogue of painting acquisitions: 1979-1989. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, 1990, pp. 21-22, repr.
1999: Kofuku, Akira. Tears Running Down the Cheeks, Rogier van der Weyden and the Expression of Emotions in Early Flemish Painting. Journal of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. No. 3, 1999, pp. 5-20, repr. [with English Abstract]
2006: Masterpieces of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art; Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2006 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 7, col. repr.
2009: Masterpieces of The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art; Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2009, no. 7, col. repr.
2013: Masterpieces: The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. Tokyo, The Western Art Foundation, 2013 (Japanese, preface in Japanese and English), no. 6, col. repr.
2018: Kofuku, Akira. Catalogue of Dutch and Flemish Paintings, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. [Tokyo], The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo; The Western Art Foundation, 2018, pp. 26-28, no. 2, col. repr.

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