A silver relief with the temptation of Christ
Oval relief with an embossed and finely chased depiction of the Biblical scene (Luke 4:1-4): “And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” H 15.7; W 13.1 cm, weight 122 g.
Presumably Northern Netherlands, attributed to Arent van Bolten, circa 1600 - 1610.
The choice of subject, the expressive chasing and above all various motifs in the landscape allow us to attribute this relief with some certainty to a North Netherlandish master with the notname “Master with the thin Branch”. The artist behind this unusual pseudonym may have been the silversmith Arent van Bolten from Zwoll. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam preserves, among other works, a relief by this maker depicting Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, which not only uses the same thin branches, but also displays certain similarities in the rendering of the clouds and the faces of the figures.
We would like to thank Prof. Dr. Johan ter Molen, Apeldoorn, for his kind help in cataloguing this work.
Literature
On Arent van Bolten cf. Weber, Deutsche, niederländische und französische Renaissanceplaketten, Munich 1975, p. 386 - 390, No. 953 - 967.