The Last Judgement,
indistinctly signed lower left,
oil on panel, 138 x 113.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Rome;
where acquired by the present owner

The present composition is based on Michelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

Michelangelo painted the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican between 1536 and 1541. Commissioned under the Medici Pope Clement VII, the fresco was completed under Pius IV, whose more censorious views may have affected the final treatment. Michelangelo depicted The Last Judgment, with complex nude figural groups of the saved rising to heaven and the condemned falling to hell, controversially including pagan elements like Charon the boat-man from Greek mythology. The present painting is a testament to the influence in Antwerp of the ‘Confrérie van romanisten’, comprised of artists and notables who had visited Rome. The work is an important document in that it neither exactly presents a record of Michelangelo’s famous Sistine fresco as it existed at completion in 1541, nor how the fresco appeared after the alterations made by Daniele da Volterra in the 1560s, but uniquely contains element of both compositions.

Another painted reproduction of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment is known, which was commissioned in 1549 by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese from Marcello Venusti and is now conserved in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples. It predates the Council of Trent’s decision, carried out in January 1564 to cover the parts of the Michelangelo’s fresco deemed obscene. Da Volterra, despite his friendship with Michelangelo, accepted the commission to paint loin cloths over the nudes in the Sistine fresco. This earned da Volterra the disparaging nickname of ‘il Braghettone’ or ‘breeches-maker’.

The present panel features drapery obscuring the genitalia of several figures, present on the fresco in the Sistine Chapel at the time of painting, but not featured in contemporary engravings. Prints exist from two Antwerp artists, Giorgio Ghisi and Jan Wierix. This important detail of the draperies may have been reported back to the Antwerp workshop in which the panel was painted. Alternatively, da Volterra’s alterations may have been observed in the original in Rome by the artist who painted the present lot. Traditionally the present composition was attributed to Hendrick van Balen (Antwerp 1575–1632), both on stylistic terms and on the basis of the indistinct signature.

Van Balen, elected Dean of the ‘Confrérie van romanisten’ in 1613 was noted both for his cabinet paintings with intricate nude figural arrangements and for his humanist aspirations. However, a master with such a connection to Rome would doubtless have been aware of the covering of Saint Catherine’s body by da Volterra in circa 1565. This more drastic change involved da Volterra chiselling away her body and frescoing a green robe over her hitherto undraped form. Previously, the figure of Saint Blaise behind her might have been construed as to be looking down upon Saint Catherine’s naked posterior. ‘Il Braghettone’ thus changed the position of the male saint’s head to instead look up towards Christ. In the present panel Saint Catherine is still depicted nude beneath Blaise’s attentive gaze, rendering the painting a unique document and adding to the mystery of its authorship.