© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Allegory of Faith
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Allegory of Faithca. 1626

Hendrick ter Brugghen(The Hague 1588 – 1629 Utrecht)

oil on canvas
72.3 x 56.3 cm
signed and dated in the light paint along thecenter of the left edge: “HTBrügghen162(?)” (“HTB” in ligature)
HBr-100
Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing

How To Cite
Van Tuinen, Ilona. "Allegory of Faith." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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Allegory of Faith
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In the corner of a humble room sits a young woman who, with a smile

Comparative Figuresspread across her slightly parted lips, gazes upward, her dark eyes fixated
on a higher realm. Hendrick ter Brugghen framed the woman’s face with ahigh-necked vest and a cream-colored headscarf that falls in thick creases
over her shoulders. A heavy blue mantle wrapped over her arms covers a
red undergarment, the left sleeve of which is just visible. The large crossshe holds on her lap, its left arm only partially seen behind her leftshoulder, indicates the spiritual essence of her rapture.[1]Unifying the composition and establishing its reflective mood is the lightshining from the simple candle the woman holds in her left hand. Ter
Brugghen placed the flame at the exact center of the composition andcarefully rendered its varying colors—orange tip, white hot core, and bluebase. Just as this candle burns quietly without so much as a flicker, soFig 1. Hendrick Ter Brugghen,Musical Trio [The Concert], ca.
1626, oil on canvas, 99.1 x 116.8cm, National Gallery, London,
Bought with contributions from theNational Heritage Memorial Fund,
The Art Fund, and the Pilgrim
Trust, 1983 (NG6483), ©
National Gallery, London / Art
Resource, NYalso does the flame of the oil lamp hanging on the wall at the left. The lamp
exudes a thin trail of smoke that rises in a perfectly straight line,
underscoring the stillness surrounding the woman’s spiritual reverie.
Like other Utrecht Caravaggisti, such as Dirck van Baburen (ca.
1595–1624) and Gerard van Honthorst (1592–1656), Ter Brugghen was
fascinated with the depiction of light effects. This work is one of two
paintings in which Ter Brugghen included two different light sources, theother being his Musical Trio of ca. 1626 in the National Gallery, London(fig 1), where the interior space is similarly lit by a candle and an oillamp.[2] In that painting, Ter Brugghen skillfully rendered the light effects
created by these different light sources: the young woman’s chin and thetip of her nose are brightly lit by the candle’s flame, whereas her righteyebrow is softly illuminated by the faint light coming from the oil lamp.
Who is this young woman so obviously averting her eyes from the worldly
realm? In all likelihood she is not a saint, since no female saint is known tocarry both a cross and a candle as attributes. It is more probable that she
represents an allegorical concept, although scholars have struggled toarticulate one that seems to accord fully with the character of the image.
Albert Blankert, who was the first to publish this painting after it wasdiscovered in 1991, interpreted it as an image of religious piety andspecifically as an allegory of heavenly contemplation.[3] He discussed thepainting together with another allegorical painting by Ter Brugghen, his
Melancholia of ca. 1626 in the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.
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Melancholia shows a young woman holding a skull and sitting in front of anhourglass with her eyes closed, her face leaning on her right hand.[4] The
presence of the skull and the hourglass, symbols of earthly transience,
prompted Blankert to interpret the Toronto painting as an allegory ofworldly contemplation. Though these works have similar dimensions andmay depict the same model, the figures are both turned to the left, making
it unlikely that they were intended as pendants. Instead, Blankert proposedthat the two works should be seen as variations on the same theme.[5]Leonard Slatkes, on the other hand, identified the young woman as theVirgin Mary. He argued that her headdress and mantle appear, albeit not
identically, in other Ter Brugghen depictions of the Virgin, such as theCrucifixion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.[6] In
Netherlandish painting the Virgin is depicted holding a candle only on her
deathbed, and hence Slatkes interpreted the subject as being the Death ofthe Virgin.[7] He argued that Ter Brugghen extracted Mary from traditional
representations of this scene in which she is surrounded by the twelve
apostles.[8] In Death of the Virgin depictions, however, John the Evangelist
often aids the feeble Mary in holding her candle,[9] and although thecompositions always contain a cross, it is held by one of the apostles,
never by Mary herself.[10] Since the apostles are so important to the story,
and since the Virgin is never depicted holding a cross, Slatkes’s argument
seems unlikely.
Neither of these theories takes full account of the central importance of thecandle, which must have had thematic as well as compositionalimportance. Numerous references to candles appear in the Old and NewTestament, as in the book of Psalms 18:28 (“For thou wilt light my candle,the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness”) and in Revelation 22:5(“And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither lightof the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for everand ever”). In these passages the light of the candle is discussed in termsof God’s light, in one case equating the two, and in the other describing
how the latter renders the former entirely unnecessary. In this painting Ter
Brugghen alludes to the light of the candle in both of these ways. Here, onearth, the woman depends on the candle to light her world, but she gazes
upward in anticipation of the heavenly light she will eventually receive.
When one considers all of the pictorial elements in this work—thepainting’s quiet and reflective mood, the cross and lit candle, the woman’s© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Allegory of Faith
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white and blue robes, and her heavenly gaze—it seems probable that Ter
Brugghen intended the painting to depict an allegory of Faith.
Ter Brugghen prominently signed and dated the left center of the canvas:“HTBrugghen fecit 162[…].” Because of paint abrasion, only a faint verticalstroke is visible in the last digit, and can be read either as a 1 or a 6. The
thematic and stylistic parallels of this work to the Toronto Melancholia andthe London Musical Trio, both of ca. 1626, however, strongly suggest that
this painting was executed in 1626.[11] As with virtually all of Ter
Brugghen’s works, it is not known who commissioned this work, although it
is reasonable to assume that the artist painted it for a Catholic patron. One
possibility may be the Haarlem artist Frederick Vroom (1600–67), whose
1667 inventory records a “Tronigie van Maria by Heynde terBurgh.”[12] Whoever was the original owner, this compelling image of a
private expression of faith surely struck a chord with the devout believers
who meditated before it.
- Ilona van Tuinen© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Allegory of Faith
Page 6 of 10Endnotes
1. Albert Blankert, A Newly Discovered Painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen (Zwolle, 1991), 19and 26, correctly observed that there is an error in the perspective of this fragment of the left
arm of the cross.
2. Albert Blankert, A Newly Discovered Painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen (Zwolle, 1991), 11,and Leonard J. Slatkes and Wayne Franits, The Paintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen:
Catalogue Raisonné (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2007), 114–15, also made thisobservation.
3. Albert Blankert, A Newly Discovered Painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen (Zwolle, 1991),
20–23. Based on Blankert’s allegorical interpretation, subsequent authors have referred tothis painting more generally as an allegory of faith. See Paul Huys Jannsen,Jan van Bijlert(1597/98–1671): Painter in Utrecht (Amsterdam, 1998), 123, and Mirjam Neumeister, DasNachtstück mit Kunstlicht in der niederländischen Malerei und Graphik des 16. und 17.
Jahrhunderts (Petersberg, 2003), 201.
4. The painting owes its name Melancholia to the pose of the woman, with her face in her hand.
This pose had been associated with melancholy ever since Albrecht Dürer’s influential
engraving of 1514 Melancholia. Based on the woman’s young appearance and the presenceof the skull, various scholars suspect that Ter Brugghen was evoking the penitent Mary
Magdalene, though the absence of her traditional attributes prevents any definitiveidentification. See, for instance, Karen A Finlay, Terbrugghen: Melancholy (Exh. cat.
Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario) (Toronto, 1984), who identifies her as Melancholy, but
acknowledges the undeniable references to Magdalene. See also Marten Jan Bok, “WasHendrick ter Brugghen a Melancholic?” in Journal of the Historians of Netherlandish Art 1,no. 2 (2009): 1-8, who proposes that the image is Mary Magdalene personified as
Melancholia mourning the death of Jesus.
5. Albert Blankert, A Newly Discovered Painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen (Zwolle, 1991), 23.
6. On the Crucifixion, see Walter Liedtke, “The Crucifixion with the Virgin and Saint John,” inDutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art , 2 vols. (New Haven and London, 2007),
1:109–18.
7. Leonard Slatkes, “Bringing Ter Brugghen and Baburen Up-to-Date,” Bulletin du Musée
National de Varsovie 37 (1996): 199–218, esp. 217–19. This interpretation was also
published in Leonard J. Slatkes and Wayne Franits, The Paintings of Hendrick terBrugghen: Catalogue Raisonné (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2007), 114–15. See also
Albert Blankert, A Newly Discovered Painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen (Zwolle, 1991),
who made the same observation about the young woman’s clothes, but refrained fromidentifying her as the Virgin because the Virgin is never depicted holding a cross. See© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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Leonard J. Slatkes and Wayne Franits, The Paintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen: CatalogueRaisonné (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2007), 155 n. 1, where Franits tentatively proposed
another interpretation. The presence of the oil lamp prompted him to suggest that the woman
might be one of the Wise Virgins from the parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1–13). In
Ter Brugghen’s painting, the most essential element of this parable, the oil jar, is notdepicted, making it unlikely that the artist intended to depict one of the virgins from this story.
8. See Leonard Slatkes, “Bringing Ter Brugghen and Baburen Up-to-Date,”Bulletin du Musée
National de Varsovie 37 (1996): 218; and Leonard J. Slatkes and Wayne Franits, ThePaintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen: Catalogue Raisonné (Amsterdam and Philadelphia,2007),114. Slatkes cites the examples of Joos van Cleve’s Death of the Virgin altarpiece in
the Alte Pinakothek in Munich and Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s nocturnal grisaille of the same
subject, now in Upton House in Banbury. Ultimately, these examples can all be traced backto Germany, to Martin Schongauer’s influential engraving of ca. 1480 (B. 33). In arguing thatthe painting depicts the Death of the Virgin, Slatkes wanted to show that it was Ter
Brugghen, not Rembrandt, who created the first single-figured history scene.
9. A rare exception is the woodcut Death of the Virgin by Albrecht Altdorfer of ca. 1520, in
which the dying Virgin, surrounded by the apostles, is holding the candle without any aid.
10. The key role of the twelve apostles becomes even clearer if we consider the apocryphalsource for this subject matter: Jacob de Voragine’s Golden Legend. See Jacobus deVoragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints , trans. William Granger Ryan, 2vols. (Princeton, 1993), 2:79–80. According to this story, the apostles were flown in on
clouds from all corners of the world at the Virgin’s request, because she wanted them aroundher when she died.
11. Albert Blankert, A Newly Discovered Painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen (Zwolle, 1991),18,
interpreted this vertical stroke as the remnant of a 4. This, however, is not possible, since thedistance between the stroke and the 2 is too small. Slatkes, in Leonard J. Slatkes andWayne Franits, The Paintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen: Catalogue Raisonné (Amsterdamand Philadelphia, 2007), 115 n 16, did not see any vertical stroke when he researched thepainting and dated it to ca. 1626–27. Nancy Krieg in 2010 and Annette Rupprecht in 2011
independently examined the painting. Ultraviolet light best revealed the traces of paint in thelast digit. They both suggested that the vertical stroke looked most like a 1. The present
author also saw the vertical stroke while examining the signature under ultraviolet light. Aftercomparing Ter Brugghen’s numerical digits in other dated paintings, it seems that the strokecannot be part of a 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, or 9. It could have been a 1. Because the bottom of thestroke is curved ever so slightly to the right, it could also have been part of a 6.
12. See Albert Blankert, A Newly Discovered Painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen (Zwolle, 1991),
26–29. Leonard J. Slatkes and Wayne Franits, The Paintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen:
Catalogue Raisonné (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2007), 114–15, list this as an option, but© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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also include the reference in the 1667 inventory, 266, no. L6, in the section of lost paintings
by Ter Brugghen.

ProvenancePossibly Frederick Vroom, Haarlem, by 1667.
Private collection, Switzerland [French art market; Charles Roelofsz, B. V., Amsterdam, ca.
1991; Noortman Master Paintings, Maastricht, 1993].
Private collection, Belgium [on consignment to Simon Dickinson Ltd., London, 1999; Johnny
van Haeften, Ltd., London, 2009].
From whom acquired by the present owner, 2009.

Exhibition History
London, Robert Noortman Gallery, “Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings,” May–June
1993, no. 8.
Washington, National Gallery of Art, April–June 1995, on loan with the permanent collection[lent by Robert Noortman Gallery].
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, March–August 2010, on loan with the permanentcollection [lent by the present owner].
Utrecht, Centraal Museum, on loan with the permanent collection, January 2015–January
2016 [lent by the present owner].
Paris, Museé du Louvre, “Masterpieces of The Leiden Collection: The Age of Rembrandt,”
22 February–22 May 2017 [lent by the present owner].
Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].

References
PossiblyBredius,Abraham.

Kunstler-Inventare:

UrkundenzurGeschichte

derhollandischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts . 8 vols. The Hague,1915–22, 2:646, no. 78.
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Allegory of Faith
Page 9 of 10Blankert, Albert. A Newly Discovered Painting by Hendrick ter Brugghen. Zwolle, 1991.
Kirby Talley, Mansfield, Jr. “Old Masters: New Discoveries.” The Connoisseur 221 (October1991): 139.
Verbeek, H. “A Woman with Candle and Cross.” Noortman Dutch and Flemish Old MasterPaintings. Sales cat. Maastricht and London, 1993, no. 8.
Huys Janssen, Paul. “Jan van Bijlert (1597/98–1671): Painter in Utrecht.” Ph.D. diss.,
University of Utrecht, 1994, 132.
Blankert, Albert. “Hendrick ter Brugghen.” Allgemeines Künstler Lexikon.

Munich andLeipzig, 1996, 504–5.
Slatkes, Leonard J. “Bringing Ter Brugghen and Baburen Up-to-Date.” Bulletin du Musée
National de Varsovie 37 (1996): 216–19, no. 11.
Slatkes, Leonard J. “Musical Group.” In Masters of Light: Dutch Painters in Utrecht during
the Golden Age. Edited by Joaneath A. Spicer and Lynn Federle Orr. Exh. cat. Baltimore,
Walters Art Gallery; San Francisco, Fine Art Museum. New Haven and London, 1997,251–54, under no. 40, 423 n. 5.
Huys Jannsen, Paul. Jan van Bijlert (1597/98–1671): Painter in Utrecht. Utrecht, 1998, 123.
Neumeister, Mirjam. Das Nachtstück mit Kunstlicht in der niederländischen Malerei undGraphik des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Petersberg, 2003, 201, 203, no. 142, 263 n. 439.
Slatkes, Leonard J., and Franits, Wayne. The Paintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen(1588–1629): Catalogue Raisonné. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, 2007, 114–15, no. A23,157, 167, 200, 271, 327, no. 22.

Technical Summary
The support, a medium-weight, plain-weave fabric, has been lined. All four tacking margins havebeen almost entirely removed. Narrow remnants remain and there is cusping along all fouredges. Neither the warp nor the weft threads run parallel to the stretcher edges. There is one
paper label but no wax collection seals, stencils, other labels or import stamps on the lining orstretcher.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied. The paint has been applied with loose
fluid brushstrokes in thin, smooth, transparent glazes through the background allowing theunderlayers to show through. The figure’s blue mantle, although not tested, is most likely painted
with smalt, and the shadowed portions have faded.[1]No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers.
There are no obvious pentimenti or compositional changes visible in the images or the Xradiograph.
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The painting is signed and dated in light-colored paint on the brown background along the centerof the left edge. The artist’s name and the word fecit are legible with the naked eye, and the first
three numerals of the date can be made out under magnification. The last numeral of the date isextremely faint, and has been read as a 1, 4, or 6.
The painting was cleaned, lined, and restored in 2010. It remains in a good state of preservation,although the blue pigment of the mantle has faded and a short diagonal tear through the figure’s
proper left hand has been restored.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. According to the 2011 Tratment Report: “This glass-based pigment shows signs ofpigment degradation. This is very common in works by Ter Brugghen. An extreme exampleof which can be found in St. Sebastian Tended by Woman in the Allen Memorial Art
Museum, Oberlin College.” Nancy Krieg treated the Oberlin painting at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, Paintings Conservation Department, under John Brealey.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection