(Wesel 1493–1555)
Three panels from the Cyriacus Altar:
Pope Marcellus ordains Cyriacus as a Deacon;
Saint Cyriacus is led to Prison; and
Saint Cyriacus refuses Idolatry,
oil on panel, 39 x 35.5 cm, 39.7 x 38.7 cm, 39.7 x 39.4 cm, framed, a set of three (3)

Provenance:
Stiftskirche St. Kunibert, Cologne 1532–1802/04;
Freiherr Johann Wilhelm Carl Adolph von Hüpsch (1730–1805), Cologne;
Großherzogliches Museum, Altes Schloss, Darmstadt, by 1820–1843;
art market, Rhineland;
Hugo Garthe (1821–1876), Cologne, 1877;
with Fritz Rothmann (1893–1983), Berlin, 1930;
bought by Kurt Rohde (1882–1950), Berlin, 1930;
by descent to Elisabeth Rohde (1915–2013), Berlin;
her sale, Grisebach, Berlin, 3 July 2015, lot 3020;
where acquired by the present owner

Exhibited:
Münster, Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, on loan, until 2015, inv. nos. 1701–1703LG;
Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Der Cyriakuslatar aus St. Kunibert in Köln, 9 May – 30 June 1991, nos. 3, 12, 13

Literature:
F. Back, Großherzogliches Hessisches Landes-Museum Darmstadt. Verzeichnis der Gemälde, Darmstadt 1914, p. 37, mentioned under no. 36A (as missing, only the first panel);
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Barthel Bruyn 1493–1555. Gesamtverzeichnis seiner Bildnisse und Altarwerke Gedächtnisaustellung aus Anlass seines Vierhundertsten Todesjahres, exhibtion catalogue, Cologne 1955, p. 52, mentioned under cat. no. 175 (as missing, only the first panel);
H.-J. Tümmers, Die Altarbilder des älteren Bartholomäus Bruyn. Mit einem kritischen Katalog, Cologne 1964, pp. 92–93, nos. A 111 (g), A 116 (l), A 117 (m);<s> </s>
G. Goldberg, G. Scheffler, Altdeutsche Gemälde. Köln und Nordwestdeutschland, ed. by Bayrische Staatsgemäldesammlungen München, Munich 1972, pp. 72–78; 
P. Pieper, Die deutschen, niederländischen und italienischen Tafelbilder bis um 1530, Münster 1986, pp. 418–423, nos. 201, 202, 203, illustrated;
M. Feltes, Architektur und Landschaft als Ort christlicher Ikonographie. Eine Untersuchung zur niederrheinischen Tafelmalerei des 15. Jahrhunderts, diss. ms. Aachen 1987, pp. 293, 403, fig. 241;
T. Jülich, J. Simane, Der Cyriakusaltar aus St. Kunibert in Köln, booklet to the exhibition in the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt 1991, cat. no. 3, illustrated p. 6, fig. 3, cat. no. 12, illustrated p. 15, fig. 12, cat. no. 13, illustrated p. 15, fig. 13 (as either Master of the Cyriacus Altar or a painter within the circle of Bartholomäus Bruyn the Elder);
B. Rosendahl, St. Kunibert, Cologne 1995, p. 298, fig. 15;
H. Kier, F. G. Zehnder (eds.), Lust und Verlust II. Corpus-Band zu Kölner Gemäldesammlungen 1800–1860, Cologne 1998, p. 36, no. 17b (as Master of the Cyriacus-Altar, [Follower of Bartholomäus Bruyn the Elder], only the first panel);
T. Jülich, Neu- und Rückerwerbungen der Abteilung für Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte des Hessischen Landesmuseums Darmstadt. Sammlungen zur Kunst des Mittelalters 1990–1997, in: Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt et al., Kunst im Hessen und am Mittelrhein, Darmstadt 1998, mentioned on p. 8 (the first panel, as Master of the Cyriacus-Altar, as a painter in the workshop or circle of Bartholomäus Bruyn the Elder);
A. Lorenz, Renaissance und Barock. im Westfälischen Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Münster, Münster 2000, pp. 22–23 (the second and third panel)

The present three panels render episodes from the life of Saint Cyriacus with a richness and vivacity that is characteristic of the accomplished hand of the Rheinish master Barthel Bruyn the Elder. Cyriacus was a Roman nobleman who converted to Christianity before being martyred during the Diocletian Persecution at the start of the fourth century AD. The panels are important to understanding the development of Bruyn’s oeuvre and have been frequently published and discussed by scholars.

A first reconstruction of this altar was attempted by Horst-Johannes Tümmers in 1964, who had difficulty in interpreting the depictions as belonging to the legend of the Two Ewalds. Tümmers observed the altar’s relationship with the much larger Xanten Altar, executed between 1529 and 1534, and spoke of ‘Mannerist elements’. What is especially characteristic are the tightly fitting clothes with the bodies’ outlines shining through, the elongated thighs, and small heads. Bruyn shows a preference for profiles, swirling hems, and cold, thin colours. In regard to the altar’s iconography, Tümmers wrote that it was difficult to associate the pictures of the altar with the legend of the Two Ewalds. While the two brothers are distinguished by their white and black hair, the deacon’s hair in the paintings is always blackish brown. There are no pictures showing two brothers.

If previously it was believed that the inner wings of the altar also depicted the legend of the Two Ewalds, Gissela Goldberg and Gisela Scheffler have convincingly shown that the present panels actually illustrate the legend of Saint Cyriacus. The present panel depicting the Saint blessed by Pope Marcellus is the first one of the story. The story continues on the central panel and right wing with the six paintings conserved in Munich (Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen). This is then followed by the two pictures in Darmstadt (Hessisches Landesmuseum) on the lower left. The positions of the two other paintings which are offered here in the lower row of the central panel are unknown. A panel which depicted the construction of a church has been lost.

When the present panels were on loan to the Westfälisches Landesmuseum in Münster, Paul Pieper, who was the director at that time, wrote in his publication about the altar’s reconstruction the following: ‘The three panels belonged to a winged altar, the reconstruction of which is not entirely certain. The altar showed three standing figures of saints on the outer sides of each wing, with Saint Ewald the Black appearing at the centre of the left wing and Saint Ewald the White appearing at the centre of the right wing, accompanied by Saints Clement and Cunibert on the left wing and Saints Nicholas and Anthony on the right wing. Between Pope Clement and the Saint Ewald the Black kneels the donor, whose banner calls upon the holy martyr Cyriacus, who does not appear on the outer wings however. With the wings open, there is a wall of about 16 images in two rows, with four images appearing on each wing and eight images of roughly equal size on the central panel – a scheme already used in the fourteenth century, for example in the Passionsaltar by the master Bertram von Minden in Hanover. The left outer wing is in Darmstadt, while the right outer wing is on the art market;
of the small pictures on the inner sides, six are in Munich, two are in Darmstadt, three are on loan in Münster (the present paintings), and two were formerly in a private collection in Berlin. The whereabouts of two further paintings are presently unknown. […] ‘The pictures were part of an altar consecrated to Saint Cyriacus, which according to the last will of the estate administrator Roricus Michelbach, canon of the Basilica of St. Kunibert in Cologne, was commissioned by the latter from Barthel Bruyn the Elder in 1532. Michelbach is documented as canon of St. Kunibert between 1517 and 1529 and must have died at a point in time between January 1529 and November 1531.’

Pieper further mentions that according to Horst-Johannes Tümmers ‘this altar must already have been disassembled before 1820, its parts having been scattered among different owners. Six panels came to Munich in 1827 through the Boisserée Collection, and parts of the left wing entered the Landesmuseum Darmstadt via the Hüpsch Collection. The paintings in Münster were probably among the six panels from the legend of the Two Ewalds’ sold at auction by Lempertz in Cologne on 17 September 1877 as coming from the collection of Hugo Garthe.’

Paul Pieper’s conclusion is that the attribution to Barthel Bruyn the Elder is indisputable. The altar must have been executed shortly after 1532, and it is an early work by the painter.

In 1992, Theo Jülich wrote in the booklet accompanying the exhibition in the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt (see literature): ‘Following the suggested reconstructions, all of the pictures of the Cyriacus Altar are known except for one smaller picture […]. The scenes are painted on horizontally joined oak panels. Each of the inner wings showed four further scenes of the life of this saint, whereas the outer wings consisted of a single depiction of three saints on either side, four times as large. The wings consisted of vertically joined panels; as they were cut apart, the respective panels are considerably thinner today and contrary to the other panels show a vertical grain pattern. The individual scenes of the legend were separated by a black painted line, so that only the outer edges of each panel have a painted edge. Therefore, the sequence of the individual panels can be reconstructed with utmost certainty from the technical and iconographic findings.’

Barthel Bruyn was the great pioneer of the Cologne school of painting and was succeeded in this endeavour by his son Barthel Bruyn the Younger (1530–1607), who, like his father was noted for his refined portraits. Indeed, some of these works by, both father and son, have been confused with portraits by Hans Holbein, a testament to their quality. Altarpieces such as the present ones are characteristic of the earlier period of Barthel Bruyn the Elder’s career, when the style of his master, Jan Joest (1450–1519) is most apparent. Joest was active in Haarlem, and trained Bruyn in his workshop alongside Joos van Cleve, which may explain the brilliance and richness of Bruyn’s colouring and handling of diverse textures. The use of contrapposto in the figures in the present three panels also suggest a familiarity with the narrative compositions of Raphael and Michelangelo, which Bruyn probably knew through engravings of their works by the Italian print maker Marcantonio Raimondi.

Technical analysis by Gianluca Poldi:

The present works are painted over a white ground that have been applied on hardwood panels. In the panel Pope Marcellus ordains Cyriacus as a deacon, the support is thinner and made of two vertically-joined wooden boards – almost certainly oak. In the other two panels the wood fibres are horizontal however, indicating that the painter, for some unknown reason, worked on two different kinds of supports.

All three paintings are characterised by an outline underdrawing, quite free, made with a brush in black ink, evidently by the same hand, that have not always been followed through in the pictorial phase. In fact, there are various notable pentiments, as in: the position of the feet of the two figures on the right in St. Cyriacus refuses idolatry, where too the base of the column has also been shortened, allowing for a better perspective of the scene. In Pope Marcellus, an object (possibly a lectern) was initially drawn on top of the altar but was then overpainted by the artist.

Some revisions occur also in the architecture, testifying that in all probability the scenes were largely conceived without much foreplaning, possibly even without relying on paper drawings or perhaps only on sketches. Some hatching is also present to create shadows, as in the hat and face of the cardinal and in some of the clothes.

Pigments, detected by reflectance spectroscopy, include: a quite finely grinded azurite in all the blue-based areas; lead-tin yellow; lead white; vermillion; probably both carmine-type red lake and madder lake. The green tights of the man on the right of Pope Marcellus ordains Cyriacus as a Deacon are obtained from a mixture of azurite and lead-tin yellow.