Jacob de Backer

(Antwerp ca. 1540/45-1600)

Salome with the Head of John the Baptist
Oil on panel, dimensions: 47 x 63 cm

In the second half of the 16th century, Jacob de Backer was the Flemish painter in Antwerp who was most influenced by contemporary Italian painting. A sizeable number of his works have so far been discovered. De Backer’s works of art were highly in demand during his lifetime. Several of his works were included in the collections of Archduke Ernst of Austria, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands who resided in Brussels from 1593 to 1595, and of Kaiser Rudolf II in Prague. Six paintings are recorded in the inventory made in 1626 of the estate of Lucretia of Palermo, the daughter of the painter and art dealer Antonie van Palermo the Elder, who, according to Karel van Mander, the painter’s biographer (1604), had commissioned a number of works by de Backer. Another interesting aspect to note is that, prior to 1598, only a few years after the painter’s death, replicas of two of his paintings were added to the Munich Kunstkammer (chamber of art) of the Bavarian dukes (Albrecht V and Wilhelm V).

Particularly well known are two works that de Backer painted while in Antwerp, the city where he produced most of his works: a “Last Judgement”, now in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp, and the triptych for the famous printer-publisher, Christoph Plantin, with a centre panel featuring the same subject in the cathedral of Onze Lieve Vrouwe, likewise in Antwerp (a preparatory sketch is owned by a private collector in Munich), which were both produced as epitaphs for secular patrons. It is striking that very few commissions were received from ecclesiatical sources. This may have been due to de Backer’s decorative, very Italianate depiction of the naked body, which corresponded more to the worldly taste of the burgher classes. In addition to religious subjects, the main themes of his works are mythological histories and allegories, with a number of portraits adding to the total.

De Backer’s works were largely unknown for many years. Many of his paintings were attributed to Bartholomeus Spranger and Frans Floris, listed as Otto van Veens or from the Fontainebleau school, or were confused because of the similarity of names with Jakob Backer, a pupil of Rembrandt, or his nephew, Adriaen Backer. With the exception of his portraits, these works were all compositions with full figures. For the first time ever, it can now be proven with the present painting that de Backer also chose half-figure formats for his histories. The outstanding quality of his art is particularly evident in such smaller works of art. The painting is not trimmed in any way, but was conceived from the outset as a half-figure work, as can be seen from the horizon just above the centre of the picture. Any other solution would have meant a loss of compositional balance.

The subject is well known. The executioner gives Salome the head of John the Baptist, after she had demanded his head – at the instigation of her vengeful mother, Herodias – from King Herod Antipas, who had been fascinated by her dancing (Matt. 14, 1-11; Mark 6, 14-28). Salome turns her head away, repulsed by the horrible sight. As a genuine Mannerist, however, de Backer avoids any emotionalising mimicry and translates her expression into an over-refined, sensitive and charming form. One is reminded of women’s heads in paintings by Raphael, which recur in very similar form in works by de Backer, in the “Charity” painting in the Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum, and in the “Mary with Child and John the Baptist” in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Müller Hofstede (p. 244) has discovered that it was above all Raphael’s “Madonna del Cardellino” in Florence that provided the model for this type of face. In the present composition, the depiction of the unclothed body also plays a key role. De Backer demonstrated his prowess in this field in his multi-figured paintings of the Last Judgement, in his mythological scenes and to an even greater extent in his allegories. In this particular case, the artist devotes special attention to the naked torso of the executioner and, in accordance with the Italian ideal of Mannerism, adds considerable play of muscles to the figure. Nevertheless, the figure appears to be of slim build, a deliberate contradiction. De Backer knows how to add rhythm to his composition, thus providing each of the two protagonists with considerable importance as autonomous figures, despite the plot that joins them. Whereas the dark wall projecting into the picture on the right provides a contrasting background for the light-skinned executioner, the figure of Salome is clearly demarcated on the left against the unimpeded view of an open landscape with a domed building in its centre.

The special position occupied by de Backer among late 16th-century figure painters from Antwerp derives from the close linkages in his art to the language of forms in the Late Mannerism of Florence and Rome, as practised in the period after Bronzino and Vasari by Vasari’s pupil, Jacopo Zucchi (ca. 1541 – ca. 1590) in the early 1570s. Until then, the prevailing approach in Flemish paintings after the mid-16th century was either to create a stylistic mixture of Italian and local, “realistic” elements (e.g. Frans Floris or Maerten de Vos), or to use a traditional style that was still Late Gothic in orientation (e.g. Ambrosius Francken). The turn away from local tradition and the openness towards the new “maniera” was de Backer’s most important contribution to the development of Antwerp painting shortly before the early Baroque era in the Netherlands.

References

• Justus Müller Hofstede, Jacques de Backer. “Ein Vertreter der florentinisch-römischen Maniera in Antwerpen (Hans Robert Weihrauch zum 65. Geburtstag)”, in: Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, 1973, vol. 35, pp. 227-260.