Csornay Boldizsár - Hubai Péter szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 96. (Budapest, 2002)

KOVÁCS, ZOLTÁN: A New Representation of the Salvator Mundi from the workshop of Quentin Massys

of the Salvator Mundi, most of which were intended as objects of private devotion, the dimensions of the Budapest panel also reflect the composition's indebtedness to portraiture. In Spain, the representation of the Salvator Mundi appeared in the centrepiece of the monumental retable of Fernando Gallegos (fig. 47), whereas in the Low Countries this iconographie type was very rarely used outside the tradition of small devotional images. ATTRIBUTION Given the distinctive iconography, the particular motifs, and its association with Netherlandish prototypes, it would appear that the author of the Budapest panel is likely to have been a Northern artist active in the first half of the 16th century. An attribution to a painter working in Quentin Massys' studio seems highly plausible, and a dating to circa 1530, in the last years of Massys' life, also seems convincing. Apart from the evidence touched upon earlier in this article, the attribution is reinforced by the stylistic characteristics that are apparent in particular forms. With very few exceptions, images of the Salvator Mundi produced in Massys' workshop are characterised by their rigid frontal view. A distinctive feature of the Budapest panel, the frontal view of Christ's figure is quite passé for a painting dating from the second third of the 16th century. Jan Massys, who took over the running of Quentin Massys' shop, for example, always avoided the frontal view when painting male figures; they are always presented at an angle. One of the distinctive facial features of Quentin Massys' figures is the placement of the pupils high up in the eyeballs;

93 the Budapest panel displays the very same feature. Christ's blessing right hand recurs in almost exactly the same pose in his Salvator now in Raleigh (fig. 44). The outstanding artistic quality of the jewelled cross and the similar manner in which the cross held in the hand of the Salvator Mundi in Antwerp's Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Künsten is painted suggests that this detail may have been painted by Quentin Massys himself. The iconographie program of the cross, with the Evangelists and their symbols, is also quite consistent with that of the cross in the Antwerp diptych. A seated, full-length image of the Salvator Mundi appears at the intersection of the arms of the cross in the Antwerp diptych, whereas in the corresponding part of the Budapest panel the Holy Ghost as a dove appears, accompanied by a bust-type image, perhaps the Holy Face or the Virgin; the presumed iconographie program of the cross would allow for a representation of either. If it is the former, it reinforces the authenticity of the divine face of the Salvator Mundi. But if the bust represents the Virgin, it should be understood in the context of the images of the Evangelists on the arms, as a reference to the incarnation of Christ, that is, the beginning of the New Testament, which is symbolised by the Evangelists. The long, oval face type, as we have seen, derives from the representations of the Eyckian Holy Face and is particularly close to the physiognomy 93 It was Leontine Buijnsters-Smets, the author of the monograph on Jan Massys, who called my attention to the latter two features; I owe her my gratitude for her observations regarding the Budapest painting.