The Representation of Martyrdoms During the Early Counter-Reformation in Antwerp

N O one who has passed through those rooms in the Antwerp Gallery which contain the works of the generation before Rubens can fail to have been impressed by a group of vivid and often gruesomely depicted martyrdoms. They are, notably (and for the time being I give the current Gallery attributions) : The Marbrdom of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, by Hieronymus Francken (Fig.2 ;centre panel of an altar-piece), The ChariQ and Marordam of Saints Cosmas and Damian (Fig.3; wings of an altar-piece) ,Diocletiancondemns St Sebastian to Death and St Sebastian beaten with Rods (Figs.8 and 9; reverse of the wings of an altar-piece), and Two Scenes from the Ilfartyrdom of St George (Fig. 10; wings of an altar-piece), all by Ambrosius Francken. As far as I know, the taste for martyrdoms in Antwerp at the closing of the sixteenth century has not yet been specifically discussed nor has the context in which they were produced received much attention. These are the matters I wish to deal with here, posing questions rather than answering them : not all of the documents which may throw light on these paintings have been discovered, and only a few of the attributional problems are capable, at this stage, of definitive solutions. Two important historical events may be mentioned first. The wave of iconoclasm which swept the Low Countries in 1566 (in Antwerp on 2 1st and 22nd August of the same year) has been the subject of much research by historians1 but has been undeservedly neglected by historians of art2. Much was destroyed, but some works of art were saved. Catholic services were soon restored. Artistic reputations and in particular that of Martin de Vos3 were made on the basis of altar-pieces, or parts of altar-pieces, commissioned to replace those which had been lost in the iconoclasm. Immediately after the outburst a number of theological writers sprang to the defence of images, seeking to eliminate abuses in order to counter a t least some of the Protestant criticism of image worship. The fact that three years earlier the Council of Trent had recommended the ecclesiastical supervision of images was used to the same end by these writers. The second event is the more peaceful iconoclasm which took place in Antwerp in 1581, when the recently elected Calvinist Town Council ordered the systematic removal of images from the local c h u r c h e ~ . ~ This took place behind