The J. Paul Getty Museum

The Mass of Saint Gregory the Great

Object Details

Title:

The Mass of Saint Gregory the Great

Artist/Maker:

Adriaen Ysenbrandt (Netherlandish, 1480 - 1551)

Culture:

Flemish

Date:

about 1510–1550

Medium:

Oil on panel

Object Number:

69.PB.11

Dimensions:

36.2 × 29.2 cm (14 1/4 × 11 1/2 in.)

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Object Description

While performing mass one day, Pope Gregory became aware of a disbeliever in the congregation and prayed for a sign that would leave no doubt about the real presence of Christ in the Mass. Christ materialized above the altar as the Man of Sorrows, displaying the stigmata and surrounded by the instruments and symbols of his Passion. The first amongst the celebrants to perceive the vision, Gregory kneels in reverence and gazes up intently, hands spread, while those around him remain as yet unaware of the miracle.

A master in the Bruges painters’ and saddlemakers’ guild in 1510, Adriaen Ysenbrandt may have trained or associated with the workshop of the Bruges painter Gerard David (about 1460 – 1523). One of the most impressive of the number of small panels attributed to Ysenbrandt, The Mass of Saint Gregory the Great exhibits the distinctive combination of softly rendered heads, magnificent glittering draperies and metalwork, and elaborate architectural decoration characteristic of painting in the Netherlands after 1500 that are the hallmarks of his manner.

Provenance
Provenance
- by 1851

Henry Farrer, British, 1798 - 1866 (London, England), sold to Henry Labouchère, 1851.
Source: JPGM, Paintings Department, curatorial files, correspondence with Barry Phillips, March 17, 2018; Quantock Lodge heirloom inventory (1914), no. 41.

1851 - 1869

Henry Labouchère, first baron Taunton, 1798 - 1869 (Stoke Park, Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, England; Quantock Lodge, Bridgewater, Somerset, England), by inheritance (as a life interest only) to his second wife, Mary Matilda Georgiana Labouchère, 1869.
Source: Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain [...] (London: John Murray, 1857); JPGM, Paintings Department, curatorial files, correspondence with Barry Phillips, March 17, 2018.

1869 - 1892

Mary Matilda Georgiana Labouchère, baroness of Taunton, 1823 - 1892 (Quantock Lodge, Bridgewater, Somerset, England), by inheritance to Henry Labouchère's daughter by his first marriage, Mary Dorothy (Labouchère) Stanley, 1892.

1892 - 1914

Mary Dorothy (Labouchère) Stanley, 1842 - 1920 (Quantock Lodge, Bridgewater, Somerset, England)
Source: JPGM, Paintings Department, curatorial files, correspondence with Barry Phillips, March 17, 2018; Quantock Lodge heirloom inventory (1914), no. 41.

1914 - probably 1920

Mary Dorothy (Labouchère) Stanley, 1842 - 1920 (Quantock Lodge, Bridgewater, Somerset, England) and Edward Arthur Vesey Stanley, 1879 - 1941 (Quantock Lodge, Bridgewater, Somerset, England), probably sold privately in this period by Mary Dorothy (Labouchère) Stanley's son, Edward Arthur Vesey Stanley.
Source: JPGM, Paintings Department, curatorial files, correspondence with Barry Phillips, July 31, 2018.

by 1926 -

Paul Bottenwieser, 1892 - 1942 (Berlin, Germany; New York, New York)

by 1927 -

E. Bolton (New York, New York)

1931 - 1932

Paul Bottenwieser, 1892 - 1942 (Berlin, Germany; New York, New York), sold to Harold Sidney Harmsworth, 1932.

1932 - 1941

Harold Sidney Harmsworth, first viscount Rothermere, 1868 - 1940 (Stody Lodge, Norfolk, England) [sold, Rothermere sale, Christie's, London, December 19, 1941, lot 81, to Wall.]

1941 -

Wall
Source: GRI annotated sale catalogue, Christie, Manson & Woods, London. Important Ancient and Modern Pictures and Drawings: Sold by Order of the Executors of the Late Rt. Hon. Viscount Rothermere [...]. December 19, 1941, lot 81.

- 1949

Private Collection (England), sold to Wildenstein & Co., 1949.

1949 - 1969

Wildenstein & Co. (New York) (New York, New York), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1969.

Exhibitions
Exhibitions
Flandres, Espagne, Portugal du XVe au XVIIe siècle (May 19 to July 31, 1954)
  • Galerie des Beaux-Arts (Bordeaux), May 19 to July 31, 1954
Religious Themes in Painting from the 14th Century Onwards (March 16 to May 5, 1962)
  • Wildenstein & Co. (London), March 16 to May 5, 1962
The J. Paul Getty Collection (June 29 to September 3, 1972)
  • The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis), June 29 to September 3, 1972
Bibliography
Bibliography

Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of More than Forty Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Mss. [...] Visited in 1854 and 1856, and Now for the First Time Described, A Supplement to Treasures of Art in Great Britain (London: John Murray, 1857), p. 104.

Paul Bottenwieser advertisement. Art News 24, no. 31 (May 8, 1926), p. 12.

Konody, Paul George. Works of Art in the Collection of Viscount Rothermere (London: n.p., 1932), pl. 44.

Friedländer, Max J. Die altniederländische Malerei. Vol. 11, Die Antwerpener Manieristen: Adriaen Ysenbrant (Berlin: Paul Cassirer, 1933), pp. 96; 138, no. 202; 152; pl. 73, no. 202.

Christie, Manson & Woods, London. Catalogue of Important Ancient and Modern Pictures and Drawings: Sold by Order of the Executors of the Late Rt. Hon. Viscount Rothermere, Also Old Pictures [...]. December 19, 1941, p. 16, lot 81, ill.

Bénézit, Emmanuel. "Isenbrant, Ysenbrant ou Hysebrant (Adriaen)." In Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs de tous les temps et de tous les pays (1952; repr., Paris: Librairie Gründ, 1966), vol. 5, p. 77.

Martin-Méry, Gilberte. Flandres, Espagne, Portugal du XVe au XVIIe siècle, exh. cat. (Bordeaux: Galerie des Beaux-Arts, with Delmas, 1954), pp. 55-56, no. 35.

Bury, Adrian. Religious Themes in Painting from the 14th Century Onwards: In Aid of the National Trust, exh. cat. (London: Wildenstein, 1962), unpaginated, no. 36, ill.

Fredericksen, Burton B. Catalogue of the Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1972), p. 62, no. 76, ill.

The J. Paul Getty Collection, exh. cat. (Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1972), unpaginated, no. 54, ill.

Friedländer, Max J. Early Netherlandish Painting. Vol. 11, The Antwerp Mannerists: Adriaen Ysenbrandt. Heinz Norden, trans. (Leiden and Brussels: A. W. Sijthoff and La Connaissance, 1974), pp. 55, 90, no. 202, pl. 144.

Fredericksen, Burton B., ed. The J. Paul Getty Museum: Greek and Roman Antiquities, Western European Paintings, French Decorative Arts of the Eighteenth Century (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1975), p. 106, ill.

Jaffé, David. Summary Catalogue of European Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), p. 137, ill.

Ainsworth, Maryan W. "Old Assumptions Reconsidered Through Revised Methodologies." In Le dessin sous-jacent et la technologie dans la peinture, colloque XI, 14-16 septembre 1995. Roger van Schoute and Hélène Verougstraete, eds. (Louvain-La-Neuve: Collège Érasme, 1997), pp. 105-6, figs. 51-53.

Ainsworth, Maryan W. Gerard David: Purity of Vision in an Age of Transition (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, with Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1998), pp. 292, 311n93.

Giorgi, Rosa. Angeli e demoni (Milan: Electa, 2003), p. 152, ill.

Giorgi, Rosa. Engel, Dämonen und phantastische Wesen (Berlin: Parthas Verlag, 2004), p. 152, ill.

Giorgi, Rosa. Angels and Demons in Art. Stefano Zuffi, ed. Rosanna M. Giammanco Frongia, trans. (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005), p. 152, ill.

Marshall, Peter. The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 55, fig. 6.