On view
Christ before Pontius Pilate,
ca. 1520
Christ appears calmly amid the howling mob that has brought him to trial before Pontius Pilate, the Roman official who ordered Christ’s Crucifixion. The anachronistic Gothic architectural elements in the upper corners suggest a staged scene that transcends real time. This drama is further emphasized by the distorted facial features of Christ’s persecutors crowding against the picture plane.
A gift from Princeton art historian Allan Marquand (1853–1924), Christ before Pontius Pilate was for many years the most famous European painting in the museum’s collection. In 1971, Marquand’s daughter Eleanor recalled that her father “originally hung in the dining room the Bosch painting of Christ before Pilate now in the University Art Museum, but my mother said she could not eat with anything so gruesome before her.”
More Context
Handbook Entry
Variously attributed to Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450–1516) or a member of his circle, <em>Christ before Pontius Pilate</em> shows the vitality of Bosch’s art just before or during the Reformation period. The artist adapts devotional imagery with half-length figures of the type used by Rogier van der Weyden and others, and embellishes the pattern with larger figures and distorted facial features. In early efforts to create grotesque physiognomies, Leonardo da Vinci made drawings studying "ideal ugliness," a counterpart to drawings of "ideal beauty," and his informal experiments seem to have been known in the North. Here the gruesome figures have ornamented their bizarre countenances with nose rings, lip piercings, and other trappings of fearsomeness. Are the reflective surfaces above Christ’s hands (possibly part of the soldier’s armor) meant to mirror our own faces? Christ is a center of calm and beauty in the midst of the howling mob that has brought him before a disdainful Pilate. The image confronts us with the degradation of fallen humanity and Christ’s knowledge of his fate. On loan to the Museum for many years before it was given, <em>Christ before Pontius Pilate</em> was for a long time the most famous European painting in the collection. Despite the change in its attribution, it still perfectly embodies the aim of a devotional image of the period, intended to provoke a powerful response in viewers even as we admire the artist’s virtuoso display of the strange spectrum of humanity. The Gothic architectural elements in the upper corners suggest the unreal, staged quality of the image, contained behind a proscenium arch. Expanding on the terse Gospel text, the artist confronts us with a theater of morality and leaves to us the choice that Pilate abdicated.
More About This Object
Information
ca. 1520
(Colnaghi, London); ca. 1891 purchase by Allan Marquand; ca. 1922-24 gift to Princeton University Art Museum [1].
[1] A pencil annotation by Frances Follin Jones notes that a 1925 entry in the Museum's Inventory Book names Eleanor Cross Marquand (1873-1950) as the donor; later, however, Eleanor Marquand Delanoy [daughter of Allan Marquand and Eleanor Cross Marquand] said it was a gift of Allan Marquand.
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- L. Maeterlinck, "A propos d'une oeuvre de Bosch au Musee de Gand", Revue de l'art ancien et moderne 20, no. 115 (Oct., 1906)., p. 302; fig. 2
- L. Maeterlinck, Le genre satirique dans la peinture flamande, (Bruxelles: G. van Oest & cie, 1907)., p. 231-232; pl. 25
- Paul Lafond, Hieronymus Bosch: son art, son influence, ses disciples, (Bruxelles; Paris: G. van Oest & cie, 1914)., no. 21
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- Walter Schürmeyer, Hieronymus Bosch: mit einer auswahl seiner werke in siebenundfünfzig lichtdrucktafeln, (München: R. Piper & co., 1923)., p. 45
- Grete Ring, "[Rezension von:] Schürmeyer, Walter: Hieronymus Bosch", Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 1 (1923): p. 310-311., p. 310
- Max J. Friedländer, Die altniederländische Malerei, (Berlin: P. Cassirer, 1924-1937)., Vol. 13: p. 157, no. 188
- W.B. McCormick, "Princeton Museum, a workshop", International studio 83 (Sept., 1925)., p. 36
- Frank Jewett Mather Jr., "Painting", Art and archaeology 20, no. 3 (1925): p. 145-151., p. 148
- Harry G. Sperling, Catalogue of a loan exhibition of Flemish primitives in aid of the Free Milk Fund for Babies, inc., (New York: F. Kleinberger Galleries, 1929)., no. 34 (illus.)
- Gustav Glück, Aus drei jahrhunderten europäischer Malerei; mit 141 Abbildungen, (Wien: A. Schroll, 1933)., p. 16
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- Ludwig Baldass, Hieronymus Bosch, (Wien: A. Schroll & Co. [1943])., p. 43, 73
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- Howard Daniel, Jheronimus Bosch, (New York: Hyperion Press, [1947])., p. 30 (illus.)
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Ernest Lotthé, La pensée chrétienne dans la peinture flamande et hollandaise de Van Eyck à Rembrandt (1432-1669), (Lille: S.I.L.I.C., Impr. de l’évêché, 1947).
, p. 206; fig. 154 - J.V.L. Brans, Hieronymus Bosch (El Bosco) en el Prado y en el Escorial, (Barcelona: Ediciones Omega, [1948])., p. 41
- Gustav Glück, Der Weg zum Bild, Erlebtes, Erlauschtes, Erfundenes, (Vienna: A. Schroll, [1948])., pl. 14
- Ernest T. DeWald, Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 7, no. 2 (1948): p. 2-5., fig. 1, p. 2 (illus.); fig. 2, p. 3 (illus.)
- Jean Leymarie, Jérôme Bosch, (Paris: A. Somogy, [1949])., fig. 94, 95
- David M. Robb, The Harper history of painting: the occidental tradition, (New York: Harper, 1951)., p. 191-92; fig. 109
- Gaston van Camp, "Autonomie de Jérôme Bosch et récentes interprétations de ses oeuvres", Bulletin (Musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique) 3, no. 4 (1954)., p. 133
- Jan Bialostocki, "'Opus quinque dierum': Dürer's 'Christ among the doctors' and its sources", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 22 (1959): p. 17-34., p. 21; pl. 3e
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"Gallery of Mediaval and Renaissance Art: given by the Class of 1929," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 25, no. 1/2 (1966): 20–27.
, p. 25 (illus.) -
Dino Buzzati, L’opera completa di Bosch, (Milano: Rizzoli, 1966).
, no. 69 - Charles de Tolnay, Hieronymus Bosch, (New York: Reynal, 1966)., p. 435, fig. A2, A3
- H.R.H., "The Art Museum at Princeton University: a selection from the collections", Art Journal 26, no. 2 (Winter, 1966-1967): p. 172+174+176+178., p. 176
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- Brigitte Völker, Die Entwicklung des erzählenden Halbfigurenbildes in der niederländischen Malerei des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, (Göttingen: 1968)., p. 91-92
- Walter S. Gibson, ""Imitatio Christi": "Imitatio Christi": the passion scenes of Hieronymus Bosch", Simiolus 6, no. 2 (1972-1973): p. 83-93., p. 86-87
- Rosemarie Schuder, Hieronymus Bosch, (Berlin: Union-Verlag, 1975)., p. 60-61, fig. 62
- Gerd Unverfehrt, "Zu einigen Halbfigurenbildern Hieronymus Boschs und seines Kreises", Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (1975): p. 101-151., fig. 9; p. 121-129
- Jacques Chailley, Jérôme Bosch et ses symboles: essai de décryptage, (Bruxelles: Palais des Académies, 1978)., no. 69
- Gerd Unverfehrt, Hieronymus Bosch: die Rezeption seiner Kunst im frühen 16. Jahrhundert, (Berlin: Mann, 1980)., p. 211
- Terada Tōru and Senzoku Nobuyuki, Bossu = Bosch, (Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha, 1982)., no. 94 (illus.)
- Sixten Ringbom, Icon to narrative: the rise of the dramatic close-up in fifteenth-century devotional painting, (Doornspijk, The Netherlands: Davaco, 1984)., fig. 57, p. 104
- Kim H. Veltman and Kenneth D. Keele, Studies on Leonardo da Vinci, (München: Deutscher Kunstverlag, [1986]-)., vol. 1: pl. 67.2
- Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 83
- Robert L. Delevoy, Bosch, (New York: Rizzoli, 1990)., p. 53
- Betsy Rosasco, "The teaching of art and the museum tradition: Joseph Henry to Allan Marquand," in "An art museum for Princeton: the early years", special issue, Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 55, no. 1/2 (1996): p. 7-52., p. 9, fig. 3
- Nadia Margolis, "Trial by passion: philology, film, and ideology in the portrayal of Joan of Arc", The journal of medieval and early modern studies 27, no. 3 (Fall, 1997)., p. 451; fig. 4
- Erik Larsen, Hieronymus Bosch: the complete paintings by the visionary master, (New York: Smithmark, 1998)., no. 34; p. 135
- Jos Koldeweij, Paul Vandenbroeck and Bernard Vermet, Hieronymus Bosch: the complete paintings and drawings, (Rotterdam: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen : NAi ; Ghent: Ludion, 2001)., cat. no. 14.4
- Timothy P. Jackson, The priority of love: Christian charity and social justice, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003)., p. 167 (illus.)
- Larry Silver, Hieronymus Bosch, (New York: Abbeville Press, 2006)., no. 262, p. 335 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 189 (illus.)
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Louise Rice, "Pomis sua nomina dervant: the emblematic thesis prints of the Roman seminary", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 70 (2007): p. 195-245.
, p. 237 -
Fritz Koreny, ed., Hieronymus Bosch: Die Zeichnungen, Werkstatt und Nachfolge bis zum Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012).
, fig. 43, p. 50 (illus.), 455 - Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 195
