The symbols of the four evangelists: A newly discovered modello for Jan Boeckhorst’s Snyders triptych (c. 1654)

Masquerading for many years under the name of Federico Zuccaro, the newly identified modello for the outer wings of the triptych commemorating Maria Snyders (1588-1659) is an important addition to the drawn oeuvre of the Flemish artist Jan Boeckhorst (1604-1668). Its discovery adds to our understanding of his process of work, moving from the depiction of the symbols of the four evangelists proposed in the preliminary drawing towards a more compact and balanced composition. It also provides an opportunity to revisit the dating of the Snyders triptych itself and to reconsider a drawing traditionally associated with it.

More than the finished panel painting, the fluid depiction of the four evangelists’ symbols in brown wash and white body colour over black chalk, with delicate touches of oil, accentuates links with Boeckhorst’s designs for prints for the Plantin publishing house in Antwerp. The author argues that there is reason to believe that not only was the triptych conceived some time before the death of Maria Snyders in 1659, but that the drawing at least was executed around 1654.

The author also argues that another drawing by Boeckhorst, kept in the Teylers Museum and known under the title Epitaph for Maria Snyders, should be disassociated from the triptych and viewed separately. Not only are there clear indications that it was intended for a print and not as the basis of a painting, but it conveys a different message. If the Snyders triptych speaks of salvation, the drawing in Haarlem promotes veneration of the Virgin Mary as the surest path to Christ, not least through quotations from the works of the ardent Marian Jesuit Petrus Canisius (1521-1597).