Maerten De Vos

MAERTEN DE VOS, THE LAST SUPPER, PEN AND BROWN INK, SIGNED
This particularly impressive drawing by one of the most prolific Antwerp artists of the second half of the sixteenth-century does not seem to be made as a study for a painting or print design by De Vos of the Last Supper, a subject which he and his workshop treated on numerous occasions (A. Zweite, Marten de Vos als Maler. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Antwerpener Malerei in der zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts, Berlin, 1980, nos. 31, 87, Z 19, figs. 40, 107, 159; Hollstein’s Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, 1450-1700, XLIV, Rotterdam 1996, nos. 308, 360, 422, 439, 461, 483, 631-633, XLV, Rotterdam 1995, ill.). The monumentality of the composition and the sumptuous interior recall those of the artist’s Marriage at Cana from 1596-1597 at Antwerp cathedral (Zweite, op. cit., no. 86, fig. 105), while similar poses for some of the apostles also occur in print designs (for example the engraving described in Hollstein, op. cit., XLIV, no. 422, XLV, ill., for which a related drawing dated 1582 was sold at Christie’s, Monaco, 20 June 1994, lot 81).
The large size of the sheet is rather exceptional in De Vos’s drawn œuvre; among the drawings of equally imposing dimensions is the Albertina’s Saint Luke painting the Virgin in an interior, a modello for a painting from 1602 (inv. 13199; see E.J. Peters in Tales of the City. Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel, exhib. cat., Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, 2022-2023, no. 35, ill.; the related painting is at the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen, inv. 88; see Zweite, op. cit., no. 103, fig. 132). That the drawing must have been an admired work of art in its own right is not only suggested by its prestigious provenance – the outstanding collection of Cornelis Ploos van Amstel – but also by the influence it seems to have had on Flemish artists of later generations, most notably Otto van Veen and Peter Paul Rubens. The former’s altarpiece in Antwerp cathedral and the latter’s Institution of the Eucharist from around 1630 in the Pinacoteca di Brera (inv. 97) are reminiscent in details and composition (J.R. Judson, Rubens. The Passion of Christ, Turnhout, 2000, no. 6, figs. 11, 14).
- Cornelis Ploos van Amstel (1726-1798), Amsterdam, sa marque (L. 2034, avec son inscription (L. 3002) ‘h. 15 d/ b. 12 d.// Marten de Vos. F 1591// Geb Antwerpen/ A. 1531// Discipel van Jaques Robuste [?]/ gebynaamd Tintoret’ (verso)) ; sa vente, Amsterdam, 2-4 avril 1800, album G, n^o 11 (à De Lelij pour 18 florins). | Collection particulière, Belgique.