Lot 1328 Dα

The panel comes from the collection of the prominent Cologne citizen Johann Baptist Ciolina-Zanoli, whose firm was a leading name in the manufacture of cologne toilet water. His extensive collection consisted primarily of works made available during the secularization of the cloister churches. After his death, part of his collection, including the present painting, was passed onto his daughter Johanna Maria Franziska Karoline, who in 1848 married Max Klemens Anton Maria Clavé von Bouhaben. In 1854 the panel was included in an exhibition at the Gürzenich in Cologne, where it was described for the first time as a work of Barend von Orley.
As unbroken and secure the provenance may be, very little is known about the original location of the panel before secularization. Two altar wings, which documentibly are from the Cologne church St. Maria ad Gradus, demolished in 1817, and today preserved in the Cologne Seminary, correspond auspiciously not only in shape and dimensions (each 143 x 57 cm) but also iconographically and compositionally to the present panel, so that an affiliation of the altar wings and “Mount Calvary” can be assumed and here is proposed (see photo montage). Depicted on the inner side of the left wing is the carrying of the cross with Veronica, holding the veil in her hands. Christ is turned to and blesses the kneeling donor Arnold von Tongern, a canon of St. Maria ad Gradus, professor of theology and between 1520 and 1525 rector of the University of Cologne. On the inner side of the right wing is the resurrection of Christ, the donor in the foreground can be identified as Johannes Hilpoet von Neuss, also a canon of St. Maria ad Gradus.
The stylistic correspondences among the altar wings and “Mount Calvary” are remarkable. Wings and middle panel are distinguished by equivalent pleasure in detail and considerable decorative richness, as well as the similarity in the presentation of the donor robes and the individualised yet comparable characterization of the figures. Moreover, above and beyond the foreground, which can be understood as podium of earthly events, in the background the sparse heavenly region opens itself into an arc which spans in gracious curves uniformly across both wings and middle panel. And furthermore, similarly presented trees loom in the upper composition of all three panels. The coats of arms on the middle panel - identified in the 1995 Cologne exhibition catalogue as those of the Hamburg patrician family Miles de Ridder - are not integrated within the composition and in all probability are additions from a later date. The two altar wings have until now been attributed as “Southern Holland circa 1520” (Gisbert Knopp, Wilfried Hansmann: Kunstwerke im Kölner Priesterseminar, Cologne 1983, p. 7). The style of the present panel, on the other hand, is comparable with works by Barend van Orley from the second decade of the 15th century, for instance the winged altar from the Church du Sablon in Brussels (Max J. Friedländer: Altniederländische Malerei, vol. 8, Leyden 1924, p. 165, no. 82, pl. LXI - LXVI).