Van de Velde 1985
“Et mvndvs evm non cognovit – De monogrammist T.G.” (Carl Van de Velde) 1985
[in: Francine de Nave (red.), Liber Amicorum Leon Voet. Gemeentekrediet van België voor de Vereeniging der Antwerpsche Bibliophielen, Antwerp, 1985, pp. 595-612]
This essay focuses on the monogram ‘TG’ which appears in two engravings: an Allegory of the Arts from 1576 and a Christ carrying the Cross from 1579. The person hiding behind this monogram remains unknown, but he was the publisher of both engravings. Probably, TG was a publisher and also an engraver who was active in Delft. The Christ carrying the Cross engraving was executed by Johannes Wierix, more than likely after a composition of Gillis Mostaert, a painter from Hulst who was active in Antwerp between 1554 and 1598 and is considered a follower a Bosch from the second half of the sixteenth century.
The transparant globe within which the Carrying of the Cross is represented symbolically refers to the word ‘mvndvs’ in the inscription ‘Et mvndvs evm non cognivit’ (John 1, 10). A similar transparant globe (floating on a sea) also appears in a Haywain painting from the workshop of Gillis Mostaert (Paris, Louvre). This painting harks back to the Haywain tapestry in the Patrimonio Nacional, which itself is possibly based on a lost original by Hieronymus Bosch. There are some minor differences between the painting and the tapestry regarding the placement of the figures and their clothing (which looks somewhat more archaic in the tapestry). Mostaert also painted a second version of the Haywain theme (Amsterdam, today: Utrecht), but here the globe and the sea have been left away.
In a footnote Van de Velde points out that in 1600 there was a Haywain on canvas in the castle of the Dukes de Croy in Heverlee (near Louvain). This was probably a replica of Mostaert’s Amsterdam/Utrecht Haywain. In 1614, ‘an original and a copy of a Haywain’ are reported in the estate of the Antwerp town secretary Filips van Valckenisse. As Van Valckenisse owned a large number of paintings by Gillis Mostaert, these two paintings probably represented a composition by Mostaert.
[explicit 18th July 2020]
