The Martyrdom of Saint Lucy, Master of the Figdor Deposition, c. 1505 - c. 1510 – (Master Of The Figdor Deposition) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Master Of The Figdor Deposition

Date: 1510

Size: 132 x 102 cm

Technique: Oil On Panel

The painting depicts various scenes from the legend and martyrdom of St Lucy as related in the Legenda aurea by Jacobus de Voragine (d. 1298).6 The dimensions, the number of planks making up the panel, stylistic similarities with the painting from which the artist takes his name, and the Viennese provenance show that The Martyrdom of St Lucy once formed a single unit with The Deposition formerly in the collection of Albert Figdor in Vienna, which was lost during the Second World War (fig. a). The scenes originally formed the front (The Deposition) and back (The Martyrdom) of the wing of an altarpiece, of which the centre panel and the other wing are probably lost. Most authors thought that the panel was the right wing of an altarpiece with The Crucifixion as the main subject.7 It can be assumed from the composition of The Martyrdom, in which most of the figures are facing right, that it was in fact the outer left wing.8 If that was the case, The Deposition would have been the inner left wing, which means that the subject of the centre panel, whether painted or sculpted, has to be reassessed. The more likely scenario with a Deposition on the left wing is that the centre panel was a Lamentation and the right wing a Resurrection. The outer right wing could have had other scenes from the life of Lucy or another saint. The triptych or retable may have been intended for the high altar of a church or convent dedicated to St Lucy.9 The scene and composition of The Martyrdom of St Lucy can also be associated with a chasuble of 1507 embroidered with scenes from St Lucy’s life which may have been made in Amsterdam.10 She was not a popular saint in the northern Netherlands, and there was no Luciakerk (Church of St Lucy) near Amsterdam or Haarlem, and only one convent.11 It stood on the site of what is now the Amsterdams Historisch Museum, which may have been where both the panel and the chasuble originated. Stylistically, this painting by the Master of the Figdor Deposition can be placed between the work of Geertgen tot Sint Jans in Haarlem and of Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen in Amsterdam. The horizontal arrangement of the composition on several levels is closely related to that of one of Geertgen’s core works, The Burning of the Bones of St John the Baptist in Vienna.12 The two panels also share the manner of depicting the foliage on the trees with short horizontal brushstrokes. In addition, some of the figure types in The Martyrdom are comparable to those in paintings attributed to Geertgen. Paschasius, for example, standing behind St Lucy on the left, is related to Joachim, the figure on the far left of The Holy Kinship attributed to Geertgen (SK-A-500). The points of similarity are the shadow below the cheekbone, the fairly short distance between the bottom of the nose and the lower lip, the fine, reddish brown contour line around the whites of the eyes, and the way in which the light areas in the beard and face are rendered with delicate touches of the brush. The execution of the background figures, with reddish brown contours for the faces and hands, is considered typical of Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen.13 The ‘draughtsman-like’ manner of painting, visible in the priest’s face and elsewhere, with various passages being accentuated with painted hatchings, such as the shadow below the cheekbone and the furrows on the forehead, is close to the work of Jacob Cornelisz. On the basis of the assumed original location of the painting, its relationship to the chasuble of 1507, and the stylistic parallels with the work of Jacob Cornelisz, such as his Crucifixion of c. 1507-10, The Martyrdom of St Lucy can be dated around the same time, c. 1505-10. (M. Leeflang)