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

BAR END VAN ORLEY. THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN. BUDAPEST, MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS are very few works that are so well documented as the Nassau-Mendoza series, nevertheless, further research is required in order to resolve several points. Barend van Orley is one of the most outstanding representatives of Netherlandish Renaissance painting. He came from a family of painters in Brussels, and it w

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as here that he predominantly worked as a court painter and tapestry designer. In 1518 he was appointed court painter to Margaret of Austria, Habsburg regent of the Netherlands who was a great patron of the arts. However, he was dismissed from the court in 1527 because of his Protestant sympathies. Margaret's successor, Regent Mary of Hungary employed him anew from 1530 to 1536, during which time he also painted the portraits of the regent and her late husband, King Louis II of Hungary. No recent monograph on the vast œuvre of Van Orley has yet been published

—he produced paintings in several genres, and in addition to his court commissions a great number of his works have survived. Van Orley, who was one of the first representatives of modern "entrepreneurial artists", very probably had an important workshop. The rendition of The Agony in the Garden follows the traditional Christian iconography, which can be read in three of the Gospels. Christ's attendants are the apostles Peter, John and