(Brugge circa 1536–1613)
Justitia vanquishes the Seven Capital Sins,
oil on panel, 99.5 x 104.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of Dieter Klenk (1906–1983), Mainz, 1964;
from whom acquired by the present owner in 1983

Exhibited:
Bruges, Groeningemuseum The Art of Law, Three Centuries of Justice Depicted, 28 October 2016 – 5 February 2017

Literature:
A. van Oosterwijk, in: The Art of Law, Three Centuries of Justice Depicted, exhibition catalogue, Groeningemuseum, Bruges 2016, pp. 165–169,
fig. 95

Antoon Claeissens trained in Bruges under Pieter Pourbus I (1523–1584) where he was made master of the Guild of Saint Luke in 1575. A documented composition by the artist, entitled Mars vanquishing Ignorance (Groeningemuseum, Bruges), was probably painted for the town hall of that city.

The present panel represents a rare synthesis of the Raphaelesque, mannerist styles of François I’s court at Fontainebleau with Northern elements drawn from the moralising woodcuts of artists such as Hans Holbein and Albrecht Dürer (see fig. 1). While the iconography of a semi-nude Justitia, wearing a girdle whose ‘seven chains hold seven abominable vices prisoner’ was described by Vasari in a letter to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, on 20 January 1543, the device of sinners tethered to the belt of a monumental female figure also echoes a Northern woodcut. Entitled Dame Venus and attributed by some to the young Dürer, it appears in Sebastian Brant’s Das Narrenschiff (Basel 1494). With these two stylistic antecedents in mind, the present Claeissens composition also develops motifs from an etching designed by the Fontainebleau artist Luca Penni (Florence 1500–1556 Paris), while exhibiting several innovations on the part of the Bruges master.

The central figure of Justitia, raised by a heavenly force, appears higher than in Leon Davent’s etching after Penni’s design. Her pose is almost the mirror of that of Christ in Raphael’s Disputa fresco (Apostolic Palace, Vatican.) Claeissens, typically, has rendered naturalistic background scenery in the Flemish manner. The more palatable figures of Luxuria (lust) with her torch symbolising passion, and Superbia (pride) who gazes at herself in a looking glass, are relegated to the mid-ground. This leaves space for the artist to portray the grotesque figures of Gula (gluttony), who brandishes a half-eaten ham-hock to Acedia (sloth), who is depicted with stumps for hands. Avaritia (greed) slouches under the weight of a split sack leaking coinage, and the withered body of Invidia (jealousy) lies upon rich drapery, suggestive of the notorious parading of aged naked courtesans in the Roman carnival. The final figure of Ira (rage) prepares to plunge his stiletto into a cherubic infant, which raises its arm up imploringly towards the figure of Justice, or indeed the crown above her head. Henry II issued an edict making burials of the new-born, or even clandestine births, a capital offense in 1556, and so the image of a baby reaching to both royal and divine justice for salvation had a contemporary context. The Latin: ‘CONFRINGE EOS IN VIRGA FERREA’ on the banderole is taken from psalms (2:9): ‘Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron’.