There are several pointers to the identity of Joan of Arc as one of the riders in the Just Judges panel of the Ghent Altarpiece.

• Of the ten featured riders Joan is is the only figure with her head uncovered.
• Her hair is cut short. It was cropped in May 1428, at the same time when she was made to dress in men’s clothes to disguise her femininity before journeying to Chinon to meet with the dauphin Charles.
• Her blue mantle is symbolic of heaven and holiness. Other figures in the frame wearing the colour blue also have a religious significance.
• The figure of Joan is fashioned to represent her family’s coat of arms, “Azure, a bow or in fess, thereon three arrows crossed …, on a chief argent a lion passant gules.”

• Azure is the blue coat, on which is a bow-or – the gold chain shaped as a bow. The three arrows are the three pointed segments of her collar, the fess. The chief is a charge that runs across the top edge of the shield, in this case the white, argent, fur trim of the blue mantle, while the lion passant gules refers to Joan’s shorn red mane. “En passant” (in passing) is also a pawn capture move in the game of chess and points to Joan’s capture at Compiègne on May 23, 1430. The pawn reference also connects to another figure elsewhere in the painting.

There are more references in the painting that point to Joan. Her inclusion is down to Jan van Eyck and not his brother Hubert who died in 1426, and at least two years before Joan set out on her misssion to have the dauphin Charles crowned as King of France.

So what prompted or inspired Jan to profile Joan in this way so soon after her death? Was he making a point of some kind about her trial conducted by an ecclesiatical court. Is this one of the reasons for the latin title of the panel “Iusti Iudices” (Just Judges), and could it refer to Psalm 94 (The Justice of God), in particular, verse 20-21?

You never consent to that corrupt tribunal
that imposes disorder as law,
that takes the life of the virtuous
and condems the innocent to death.

More details that connect to the identity of Joan of Arc in a future post.

• references: history.com and heraldica.org