De ongelovige Thomas

Bernard van Orley's Doubting Thomas at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, painted around 1513, depicts the apostle Thomas's encounter with the risen Christ — the post-Resurrection appearance in which Thomas, who had refused to believe without physical proof, touched Christ's wounds and proclaimed 'My Lord and my God.' As court painter in Brussels, Van Orley produced religious works that brought a new Italianate monumentality to traditional Netherlandish devotional subjects, and his Thomas demonstrates the more dramatic, physically expressive figure style he was developing under the influence of Raphael's prints and compositions. The Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels hold the most comprehensive collection of Flemish and Belgian painting in existence, including numerous Van Orley works that document his development from Flemish precision toward a more international Renaissance style. The Doubting Thomas subject had particular resonance in an era of religious controversy, when the direct physical testimony of the apostles was invoked to authenticate Catholic sacramental theology against reforming challenges to the Eucharist and holy relics.

The panel shows van Orley's developing synthesis of Netherlandish precision with Italian figure scale, in a composition that balances intimate devotional content with Renaissance spatial grandeur.