The Foot Washing

Author: Albert J. Elen

The Passion series (inv. nos MB 1716-1728)

Together with his fellow townsman Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) Karel van Mander was the foremost supplier of drawn designs for prints. Unfortunately, most of these drawings have been lost. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, however, owns a unique, practically complete series of preliminary drawings¹ for the set of engravings² depicting the Passion of Christ.

The drawings were executed in a technique characteristic of Van Mander, but also popular with his older contemporary Stradanus.³ Each pen drawing was modeled with washes in different shades of blue and brown for the dark areas, creating highlights by leaving these parts untouched by the brush or by adding white bodycolour.⁴ The resulting rich chiaroscuro gives the drawings a painterly quality; it allows for a dark backdrop for the passion scenes and adds to the dramatic effect. Van Mander seems to have adopted this technique earlier on in his career when he was in Italy (1573-1577).⁵ The painterly shading technique had to be graphically translated into hatchings and cross-hatchings, a real challenge for the engraver, who was allowed a great deal of freedom also in working out details.⁶

To facilitate the 1:1 transfer of the image to the copper plate, the drawings were each carefully traced with a blunt needle. While drawing Van Mander took into account that the engraved depictions would become mirror images. The actual engraving was left to artists who specialized in this. Jacques de Gheyn II (1565-1629), who was also the publisher of the print series, accounted for four of them⁷; his gifted pupil Zacharias Dolendo (1561-1604) took care of the remaining ten. The museum owns two sets of the first edition, published in Leiden.⁸

The division of tasks has been inscribed at the bottom of each print. Van Mander is named as the draughtsman with the Latin abbreviations ‘inve.’, ‘inven.’ or ‘invent.’ (invenit = has invented/designed), De Gheyn and Dolendo as the engravers with ‘sc.’, ‘scu.’ or ‘sculp.’ (sculpsit = has engraved), and De Gheyn as the publisher with ‘exc.’ or ‘excu’ (excudit = has published). The print series itself is not dated. Based on the date 1596 written by Van Mander on two of the preliminary drawings, the print series is dated 1596-1598.

The set of design drawings includes one which was not engraved, The Foot Washing (inv. no. MB 1722), which for unknown reasons was left out of the series. Anyhow, it is not an essential scene and probably De Gheyn skipped it in order to limit the number. The preliminary drawings for prints 12 and 13 (ill. 1 and ill. 2) are missing. These must have got lost at some point, perhaps they were less refined in their execution and not considered worthwhile keeping.⁹ The others have always stayed together. After the engravings were finished the set of preliminary drawings has possibly been sold by the publisher who had ordered them from Van Mander and therefore owned them. What happened to them after that time we do not know. The set was eventually purchased for the museum at the Vis Blokhuyzen auction in Rotterdam in 1871, probably together with a set of the print series.

The three artists had worked together on a previous project, in 1595-1596 and just before the Passion series, depicting Eight Repentant Sinners from the Old and New Testament.¹⁰ The prints of that series are larger (circa 200 x 145 mm) than those of the Passion series and Van Mander’s designs for it have not survived. The cooperation between Van Mander and Jacques de Gheyn II goes further back. Around 1589 Van Mander delivered the designs for a print series The Twelve Sons of Jacob, engraved by De Gheyn and first published by Jan Pitten,¹¹ which has similar dimensions as the Passion series. In 1591-1592 the two again worked together on the print series Christ, The Twelve Apostles and St Paul with the Creed,¹² of which the sheets measure approximately 300 x 200 mm, and the designs have neither survived.

The Foot Washing

Centrally placed in the brightly lit foreground, Christ is shown humbly kneeling before his disciple Peter, not actually washing his upheld right foot but rather holding it by the heel with his right hand and making a gesture of speech with his raised left hand. Peter is feeling uncomfortable and is protesting, holding his right hand to his head. Several bystanders are looking on and so are figures looking down from the balustrade in the shadowy background. The discussion between Christ and his disciples Simon and Peter regarding his wish to clean their feet is described in the gospel of John (13:1-20), as part of the ritual preparation for supper. In this case it is the Last Supper, where Jesus knew he would be betrayed by Judas, resulting in his arrest on the Mount of Olives (Gethsemane), the two following scenes in this Passion series. When Peter objected to him washing his feet, a common practice normally carried out by servants, Christ responded that if he would not allow him to do so, he could not be his companion. It symbolizes Christian humility and is at the same time a portent of the passion.

Although Van Mander made this drawing of the scene preceding the Last Supper, it was eventually left out from the print series. Apparently, it has been dropped on further consideration, as it has not even been indented for transfer to the copper plate, and the print series was consecutively numbered from 1 to 13, from The Last Supper onward. Moreover, The Foot Washing is the only drawing left unsigned. According to Leesberg the scene was omitted from the series because it was also left out from the contemporary print series of the Passion after designs by Goltzius.¹³