The Three Kings,
oil on canvas, each 68.5 x 59 cm, framed (3)

It has not been possible up to now to definitively assign these separate representations of the Three Magi to a specific artist. Related to each other in terms of composition, they constitute an extremely rare series in terms of iconography. In the biblical text (Matthew 2), the Magi (or Wise Men/Kings from the East) are not mentioned by name, whereas their gifts are explicitly listed: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The names by which the Wise Men have been referred to since the 6th century are not uniformly used, and the attribution of their respective presents also varies. They were traditionally represented as the three ages of man (youth, manhood, and old age), and from the 15th century onwards, one of them was depicted as a dark-skinned man. Here Caspar is shown on the left, Melchior at centre, and Balthazar on the right, with gold assigned to Caspar, frankincense to Melchior, and myrrh to Balthazar.

A comparable sequence by Jan van Bijlert in Saumur, somewhat smaller in size, similarly shows the Three Magi as busts. That each of the individual panels of this cycle bears the artist’s signature is further proof that they were conceived as three separate works forming part of a series (see P. H. Janssen, Jan van Bijlert, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998, pp. 95/96, nos. 4–9, pp. 317/18, plates 139–142). Such sequences of separate renderings of the Three Magi are extremely rare in Dutch 17th-century painting. At least two similar series by the hand of Jan van Bijlert are known. In addition to the series in Saumur, he also painted another of which only Caspar has survived in the form of a half-length figure on a support of identical dimensions. A copy of the Saumur series was sold at Christie’s, Amsterdam, on 17 May 2004 as lot 96 (as ‘Circle of Jan van Bijlert’).

Due to the clear tonality and a certain flatness of the colours, Abraham Bloemaert has been suggested as an author, while such students of Rembrandt as Salomon de Bray have been considered as well. Stylistic comparison also points to Cesar van Everdingen – such as that of Balthazar to Everdingen’s Bacchus in Düsseldorf or to the portrait of Willem II in profile in Everdingen’s large composition Count Willem II of Holland Granting Privileges from 1655 in Leiden. In Everdingen’s oeuvre we also come across possible comparisons for the figure of the black king, such as that of one of the servants in the portrait of Wollebrand Geleynsz from 1674 in Alkmaar. However, it should be pointed out that according to the current stage of research, the iconographic phenomenon of the Three Magi as separate representations in the Northern Netherlands is exclusively known in Utrecht. And both Jan van Bijlert and Jacob Duck, the only other artist who painted comparable compositions, were active in Utrecht.

We are grateful to Sylvain Kerspern and Christian Tico Seifert for their kind assistance in cataloguing the present paintings.