Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 105. (Budapest, 2006)

NEW ACQUISITIONS - ÚJ SZERZEMÉNYEK - ZSUZSA URBACH: Barend (Bernaert) van Orley: The Agony in the Garden

BAREND (BERNAERT) VAN ORLEY (active in Brussels after 1515 - died in 1541/42) THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN OIL ON OAK, 66.5x82.5 CM ON THE REVERSE. ON A GROUND IMITATING RED AND GREY VEINED PORPHYRY. THE COAT OF ARMS OF HENRY 111 OF NASSAU-BREDA AND HIS THIRD WIFE. MENCÍA DE MENDOZA Y FONSECA. PURCHASED FROM HABOLDT & CO. PARIS ARTDE A

1 ERS. ON THE OCCASION OF THE CENTENARY OF THE OPENING OF THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARIS. BUDAPEST WITH THE FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF THE HUNGARIAN NATIONAL BANK. The painting was apparently lost for centuries before it resurfaced in 1978, in London, (Christie's, 14 April, lot 45). It was Lome Campbell who recognized that the work is identical with an item in an inventory of 1535, which was taken in the castle of Jadraque, Spain, entering the paintings of Prince Henry and his third wife, Mencia de Mendoza. The inventory gives a detailed description of Barend van Orley's four Passion scenes, which were placed into separate white crates to be dispatched to Breda. The other three panels are The Crowning with Thorns (Hanover, Niedersächsiches Landesmuseum, Landesgalerie), The Currying of the Cross (Oxford, Oriel College) and Chilist and the Virgin before the Crucifixion (Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland). The latter of the two were displayed at the grand Bruges exhibition of 1902, which marked the point when Flemish art was first rediscovered. Those who commissioned the Passion series, comprising of four panels, were prominent personalities of the Habsburg regent's court in Brussels: Henry III of Nassau-Breda and his third wife, Mencia de Mendoza y Fonseca, a passionate collector who came from a noble Spanish family and was educated as a humanist. Henry was one of the tutors of Emperor Charles V, as well as a chancellor and a regent. The Nassau palace stood next to the imperial residence in Brussels and it was no less famous for its collection, furthermore, Henry's commissions for Renaissance edifices including the Breda castle, were also significant. The Passion series was ordered from Van Orley and made circa 1530-1535, however, what the commissioners intended for the work or where they wished to place it remains an unresolved mystery, although it is believed that Breda castle was one possible destination. The couple's coat of arms on the back of each panel, painted on an imitation stone base, allows the hypothesis that both sides of the paintings must have been visible where they were originally kept. In Flemish painting there