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artist or maker

Calvaert, Denys (b.c 1540, d.1619)

Date

c 1585-1595

dated by Rijksmuseum drawing

Place of production

Bologna, Italy

Medium

oil on copper

Type of object

paintings

Accession number

139.1996

Small oil painting on copper of the Visitation: the meeting of Saint Elizabeth and the Virgin Mary. The two women meet to the left of centre. Mary stands in the centre on a flight of stairs, her right leg on a higher step. She holds her left hand to her breast and Saint Elizabeth's right hand in her right hand on her right thigh. She inclines her head to the left towards Saint Elizabeth. She wears a red dress over a white transparent chemise; a blue cloak, draped over her right thigh; and simple shoes, possibly clogs. Her blond hair is tied up and covered with a small gauze scarf; she has a simple halo. Saint Elizabeth kneels on a kneeler to the left with her back to the viewer; her left leg is higher, perhaps balancing on a higher step. She places her left hand on Mary's shoulder and looks into Mary's face. She wears a white cimple, gree dress and golden cloak over the lower part of her body. In between the two figures, there is a small white and beige dog.

To the left, standing in a doorway with a raised portcullis, there is a standing bishop with a long white beard leaning forward and making the sign of a blessing. He wears a mitre, pink robe and purple chasuble. To the right of the central pair, there is an old peasant man with a stick and a young peasant girl balancing a basket of flowers on her head with her right hand and placing her left hand on her hip, and looking out at the viewer. In the background, there is a view of a fortified town with bridges over a river and mountains in the distance.

Commentary

Based on a composition known from a drawing in the Rijksmuseum, this small work on copper demonstrates Calvaert's interest in arranging biblical narratives around staircases, emphasising the point where two important characters meet. In the Visitation, the newly pregnant Mary meets her elderly cousin Elizabeth, also miraculously pregnant after a lifetime of barrenness. Calvaert located the meeting on the steps of a gated city, replicating bodily metaphor in architectural terms.

The drawing in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam with the same composition is inscribed on the verso in an early hand: 'Dion. Calvart' (inv. no. RP-T-1889-A-2142). This sheet has been compared to Calvaert's preparatory sketches for the painting of the marriage of Saint Catherine, dated 1590 (see K G Boon, Netherlandish drawings of the 15th and 16th centuries, vol. 2, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1978, p. 42, no. 116). A painting with the same subject is in the Hermitage Museum (inv. no. ГЭ-7374). Calvaert often re-worked earlier compositions.

Born in Antwerp, Calvaert moved to Italy, settling in Bologna in the mid 1570s. He specialised in religious works including large scale altarpieces and small copper paintings, as in this example. Copper gave the paint a luminosity that allowed artists to produce jewel-like compositions. Here Calvaert used contrasting acidic colours to emphasise the central drama of the differently aged women. The paler bystanders on the right balance the richer costume of Zacharias, a high priest of the Temple and Elizabeth's husband.

Calvaert made lots of drawings, many experimenting with the relationship between figures and architecture. Stairways often bisect the picture plane as in this work, lending his compositions a stage-like theatricality. Here, viewing is depicted both in the bystanders and the small dog peering between the women. Calvaert added dynamic movement by reversing the height of the steps in the heights of the two women: although on a higher step, Elizabeth bows to her younger cousin, more important as the mother of Christ and her guest. The raised portcullis to the left does not appear to signify the house of Zacharias, the usual location for this scene. Instead, it creates an allusion to the interior space of the two women and the lives growing inside.

Phillippa Plock, 2012

Physical description

Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)

362 x 285 (sight size)

Signature & date

not signed or dated

History

Provenance

Acquired by a Rothschild Family Trust, 1973.

Collection

Waddesdon (Rothschild Family)
On loan since 1996

Indexed terms

Subjects

Genres

Religious Subjects/Genres

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