The Betrayal of Christ, from a series of reliefs with stories from the Life and Passion of Jesus Christ
Malines (Mechelen) Alabaster School (fl.16th-17th century)
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
circa 1600
Materials
Alabaster
Measurements
225 x 200 mm
Place of origin
Malines (Mechelen)
Order this imageCollection
Mount Stewart, County Down
NT 1655922.4
Summary
Sculpture, alabaster; the Betrayal of Christ; Mecheln (Malines); c. 1600. A small alabaster relief from a group of seven (NT 1655922) depicting scenes from the life and Passion of Jesus Christ, made in the southern Netherlands. The scene depicted here shows Jesus Christ being betrayed by Judas Iscariot and taken by soldiers in the garden of Gethsemane. The seven reliefs were kept, arranged in the form of a cross and together with other small religious sculptures in the bedroom of Edith, Marchioness of Londonderry.
Full description
A small alabaster panel depicting the Betrayal of Christ and his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane, from the story of Christ’s Passion. The scene is set within the garden, the gate to which can be seen at top right. In the centre, Judas embraces Christ and soldiers rush to arrest him; other soldiers' presence is indicated by the tops of weapons in the air behind the main figures. In the foreground at right, Peter struggles with the High priest’s servant Malchus, drawing his sword to cut off the ear of his opponent, who holds a lantern. A stepped ledge at bottom. Some restoration to the gilding, especially the weapons and the garden fence. Mounted in its original frame, black-painted, with an inner frieze of stamped and gilded gesso work with arabesque decoration. The Betrayal of Christ is the poignant scene, described in all four Gospels (Matthew 26: 47-56; Mark 14: 43-52; Luke 22: 47-53; John 18: 1-12), when after Christ had endured his lonely vigil in the Garden of Gethsemane, the scene known as the Agony in the Garden (see NT 1655922.5), the traitor Judas Iscariot brought soldiers to the garden. Judas approached Christ and kissed him, the agreed sign for identifying the man they were to arrest. The Gospels all recount the further story, that Simon Peter then took out his sword and cut off the ear of Malchus, the High Priest’s servant, earning a rebuke from Jesus: ‘all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword’ (Matthew 26: 52). The relief is one of a group of seven reliefs at Mount Stewart, probably acquired by Edith, 7th Marchioness of Londonderry and displayed in her bedroom, ‘Genoa’, arranged upon a velvet panel in the form of a cross. The 1950 inventory of Mount Stewart records just six reliefs, so it is possible that the seventh was acquired some time in the 1950s. The alabaster reliefs are part of a small collection of devotional objects kept in a corner of Genoa. In their arrangement by Lady Londonderry, the alabaster panels do not follow any liturgical order, but they all illustrate scenes from the Life and Passion of Christ: The Holy Family, with Saint Anne (NT 1655922.3) Agony in the Garden (NT 1666922.5) Betrayal of Christ (NT 1655922.4) Crowning with Thorns (NT 1655922.2) Crucifixion (NT 1655922.7) Entombment (NT 1655922.6) Pentecost (NT 1655922.1) The Mount Stewart reliefs are products of a prolific industry in alabaster carving in the southern Netherlands, that had its main centre in the city of Mechelen (Malines), and was active from c. 1550-1630. Alabaster is a form of gypsum. It has long been popular as a material for sculpture, for its relative softness and ease of carving, its attractive translucency and whiteness and its cheapness compared to marble. In England, from the twelfth through to the sixteenth centuries, alabaster carvings were produced in vast numbers by workshops based mainly in the English Midlands. The most common products of the English workshops were figurative panels, usually religious in subject matter, which formed the basis of large multi-panel altarpieces or else were used in smaller single-panel devotional altars. English alabasters were exported widely throughout Europe before the Protestant Reformation, which in England brought a sudden end to this trade. The gap in the market this created from around 1540 was quickly compensated for by the development of an important school of alabaster sculpture in the Southern Netherlands, especially in the towns of Mechelen (Malines) and Antwerp. The Mechelen alabaster workshops, which operated from around 1550 to 1630, became much more important later in the sixteenth century, as Antwerp went through severe economic crises. As well as altarpieces, these workshops specialised in making large numbers of small reliefs, often in series and generally smaller than the English alabasters, but replicating many of their subjects, albeit in a more modern late Renaissance style. The reliefs were made in enormous numbers by the artisans, who were known as ‘cleynstekers’ (carvers of small works) or ‘albastwerkers’ (alabaster workers). Sometimes the small panels were incorporated into larger altarpieces, such as the Entombment, set into the upper section of an altarpiece from c. 1550-60 in the Victoria & Albert Museum (Inv. 587-1883; Williamson 2002, pp. 150-51, cat. 50). But they were much more commonly individually framed, with the the frames incorporating decorative friezes stamped and gilded gesso. The reliefs themselves were invariably also partly gilded, so when they were freshly made they must have been spectacular in appearance, even though they were rather mass-made products, mostly modest in quality. Prints must have provided the sources for many of the images, although there is also some evidence that designs were produced in some of the Mechelen workshops. The seven Mechelen reliefs at Mount Stewart have been gathered from different sources and are certainly the products of more than one workshop. Mechelen alabasters quite often bear workshop marks which have allowed a number of these reliefs to be identified as the products of named workshops. No marks are however visible on any of the Mount Stewart reliefs. The source for this image of the Betrayal of Christ is not known, and may be the invention of the carver. It perhaps shows some awareness of the corresponding scene in Albrecht Dürer’s Little Passion, the famous and influential set of woodcut prints published in 1511. There is a relief of this subject in the Stadverzameling in Tongres, and another in the Musée Sandelin in Saint-Omer (Bès de Berc 2003, p. 133.). Jeremy Warren August 2022
Provenance
Probably acquired by Edith, Marchioness of Londonderry (1878-1959); by descent to Lady Mairi Bury (1921-2009); accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the National Trust, 2013.
Makers and roles
Malines (Mechelen) Alabaster School (fl.16th-17th century), sculptor
References
Mount Stewart 1950: Inventory and Valuation of the Contents of Mount Stewart, Newtownards, County Down, the property of the Marchioness Dowager of Londonderry, D.B.E. Prepared for the purpose of insurance by H. Clifford-Smith, M.A. F.S.A. 1950, p. 43. Jansen 1964: Ad Jansen, ‘Mechelse Albasten‘, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen, 68 (1964), pp. 111-191. Derveaux-van Ussel 1967: Ghislaine Derveaux-van Ussel, ed., Mechelner Alabaster, exh. cat., Städtsiches Museum, Trier 1967 Derveaux-van Ussel 1967a: Ghislaine Derveaux-van Ussel, Exposition de Sculptures anglaises et malinoises d’Albâtre, exh. cat., Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels 1967. Williamson 2002 : Paul Williamson, Netherlandish Sculpture 1450-1550. London 2002 Bès de Berc 2003: Guy Bès de Berc, Sculptures d’albâtre de Malines. Les reliefs de dévotion, fin XVIème début XVIIème siècle, Saint Armel 2003. Lipinska 2015 : Aleksandra Lipińska, Moving Sculptures. Southern Netherlandish Alabasters from the 16th to 17th centuries in Central and Northern Europe, Leiden 2015.