Dimensions: 188.6 x 132.7 cm (central quatrefoil); 183.5 x 62.5 cm (left wing); 183.5 x 64.8 cm (right wing)
dated on frame: 1544
in MNW since 1946
inv. no. M.Ob.595 MNW
Adoption period: 1 year
Biography
The triptych "Ecce Homo" is the most famous work of the Dutch Renaissance in Poland. Its author, the Haarlem painter Maerten van Heemskerck, spent four years in Rome (1532-1536) studying ancient ruins and sculptures, as well as the works of his contemporaries - primarily Michelangelo and Francesco Salviati. Upon his return, he consistently enriched his native works with Italic and ancient themes. The Ecce Homo Triptych, created in 1544, is a remarkably harmonious synthesis of this new style: the reception of Italian art is documented in the central scene, while the realistic Dutch tradition is admired in the masterful portraits of donors on the side wings.
Jan van Drenckwaerdt, an important city official in Dordrecht, commissioned this work from Heemskerck as an epitaph for himself and his second wife, Margaretha de Jonge van Baertwyck, who died in 1542. The spouses are shown in prayerful poses, on kneelers (which bear their coats of arms), in eternal contemplation of the Ecce Homo scene. The donors are accompanied by patron saints with distinctive attributes: St. John the Evangelist with a chalice filled with poison, and St. Margaret with an open book of Scripture and a cross. Their figures were created in an Italicizing manner, with a characteristic "wet robes" effect that brings out the shapes of the bodies. The same saints are also painted on the reverses of the triptych's wings in the formula en grisaille, that is, in a monochromatic gray-brown color scale - as fictitious stone sculptures. The original wood-carved frame is decorated with pilasters with candelabra ornament, emblematic motifs and the motto of the founder's family Espoir confort Drenckwairt (Hope comforts the Drenckwaerts) support the arch of the illusionistic coffered vault.