The Flagellation of Christ

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Specifications

Title	The Flagellation of Christ
Material and technique	Brush and blue ink, blue wash
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 375 mm Width 270 mm
Artists	Attributed to: Girolamo Romanino
Accession number	I 366 (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1540
Watermark	Roman she-wolf in rectangle(?), (64 x 23 mm (?), difficult to see, centre on P6 of 12P, vH)
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Mark	F.W. Koenigs (L.1023a) on removed fragment of backing sheet
Provenance	Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1920-1930 (North Italian, c. 1500); D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Material	Blue ink > Ink > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Paintbrush > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Paper > Vegetable material > Organic material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Geographical origin	Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

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Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Klazina Botke

In 2020 Aidan Weston-Lewis attributed this study to Romanino, one of the leading artists in Northern Italy during the first half of the sixteenth century. He was known first and foremost for his fresco paintings and altarpieces with expressive figures.^[1]Weston-Lewis saw a strong likeness to Romanino’s processional banner of around 1540, now in New York.^[2]The flagellation of Christ is painted on one side of this banner; the Virgin as the Madonna of Mercy appears on the reverse. Although the composition of the flagellation scene obviously differs from the drawing, there are similarities in the figures’ positions and expressions. That Romanino’s studies did not always correspond with the painted finished result is typical of this artist, and thus does not immediately rule out an attribution to him.^[3]He also often experimented with the effects of light and shade on bodies to heighten the drama of an event. This, too, is clear in the Rotterdam drawing. The banner and study reveal Romanino’s familiarity with the German prints that were available in Northern Italy: the compressed composition with two executioners is undoubtedly derived from the famous engraving (1512) by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).^[4]According to Weston-Lewis, the drawing also has superficial similarities to the fresco The Flagellation of Christ (1519) in Cremona Cathedral and the organ shutters decorated by Romanino (1540) in the Church of San Giorgio in Braida in Verona.^[5]Other figures in the windows are reminiscent of the image of St George on the inside of the left organ shutter.

The material used could also cast some doubt on this attribution: Romanino used various media, but drawing with blue ink alone appears for the time being to be unique in his oeuvre. Not only are the outlines put in with a brush, so too is the hatching that gives the figures volume and structure and strengthens the three-dimensional effect of the architecture. This was further reinforced by applying the ink in different shades. Regrettably, the drawing has suffered unsightly damage from damp over the years.

Footnotes

^[1]Email correspondence on 14 September 2020. At the end of a visit to the Print Room around 1960, Pouncey suggested the name of Niccolò Giolfino.

^[2]Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 1989.86.

^[3]Nova 1995, p. 162.

^[4]Bartsch VII.35.8; example in Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv. DN 1281/232. According to Felton Gibbons, the depictions of Christ and his torturers were based on an engraving by Mantegna, (Bartsch XIII,227.1); correspondence with Bram Meij on 28 June 1970.

^[5]There is also a red chalk study of the Flagellation of Christ, attributed to the circle of Romanino; New York, Morgan Library & Museum, inv. IV, 35.

Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600

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