Adriaen van Overbeke, formerly known as the Master of the Antwerp Crucifixion, was a so-called Late Gothic Mannerist painter from Antwerp, who still worked in a basically Medieval, Gothic style. His activity is documented between 1508 and 1529.

 

Van Overbeke became rapidly a very successful businessman: he had an extensive workshop of assistants and apparently loved working on important orders for huge Reredos (Retables) that combined polychrome sculptured wooden altarpieces with painted panels. His best examples can be found today in churches in North Rhine – Westphalia in Kempen, Dortmund and Schwerte and in Västeras in Sweden.

 

This Ascension of Christ must have been painted for a Franciscan church: indeed we see not only the Virgin Mary and 11 Apostles (for obvious reasons Judas is missing) witnessing the miracle, but at the extreme right also Francis of Assisi.

 

 

Flemish early 16th century painter from Antwerp.

Activity documented between 1508 and 1529.

 

Van Overbeke is catalogued as a so-called Antwerp Mannerist painter, although his style is still typically Late Gothic, holding very few Renaissance elements.

 

The so-called “Master of the Antwerp Crucifixion” (named after the Crucifixion at the Maagdenhuis Museum in Antwerp) must be identified as Adriaen van Overbeke. In 1933 Max J. Friedländer had attributed a group of eight panels to the workshop of an unknown artist identified by the pseudonym “The Master of the Antwerp Crucifixion”:

- four of these paintings were in the collection of Alexander Fleischner; two of these were sold at Christie’s Amsterdam, 13/05/14;

- four other paintings are in the Bonnefantenmuseum of Maastricht. 

These eight panels must have been part of a monumental altarpiece.

 

In 1508 van Overbeke was mentioned for the first time as a Master in the Antwerp Painter’s Guild of Saint Luc. In 1510 he was commissioned an altar piece for a chapel at the Hospice Comtesse in Lille, which is not preserved, just as another one (which had been started by another artist) commissioned by the Franciscans of Valenciennes.

 

Between 1513 and 1529 he was active in present-day North Rhine – Westphalia. In 1513 in Kempen the Brotherhood of St Anne commissioned the huge, famous reredos (“retabel” in Dutch) for the Propsteilkirche, which is still in situ. Kempen lies close to the Dutch border, between the German town of Düsseldorf and the Dutch town of Venlo. This is the earliest dated Antwerp altarpiece. According to the van Overbeke specialist, Dr. Godehard Hoffmann from the “Landeskonservatorin Rheinland”, van Overbeke had by then already rapidly extended his workshop with more and more assistants: the Master painted the underdrawing, while his helpers painted in the composition. Thanks to this organisation of the workshop a recognizable style of production was guaranteed, although the quality of the paintings did not meet with the initial, individual high standard.

 

Between 1515 and 1520 van Overbeke and his workshop painted the six outer panels of the Retable of St Mary, which are now in Sweden, in the Cathedral of Västeras.

 

In 1521 van Overbeke and the sculptor Jan Wraghe signed the contract with the Franciscans of Dortmund for a Eucharistic altar. Today it is the largest known Antwerp reredos: when opened it measures 5,6 by 7,4 metres. At the dissolution of the Franciscan monastery in 1809 it was bought by the Church of Saint Peter (St Petrikirche) of Dortmund, where it still stands.

 

Two pupils are documented with van Overbeke in 1522: one of them was probably his son Hieronymus, the second one was Goyvaert van Roye. Adriaen van Overbeke also cooperated in various constellations with other Antwerp workshops. He appeared both as a sole trader and as a subcontractor.

 

In 1523 van Overbeke and his assistants produced the Retable of the church of St Victor in Schwerte.

 

Typical of van Overbeke are his elongated, tall and slender figures with thin hands and elongated fingers. His male figures usually have a beard. Sometimes they make dynamic gestures, as for example the male saint in the left foreground of our painting (Saint Peter?). Their faces are wide and slightly elongated, their eyes are small and sunken, their mouths have hanging angles.

 

 

Because it is an important, early 16th century Flemish painting, that testifies of the force of religion and the function of art in our Late Medieval society.