Brothers by half

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UPDATED Tuesday, 12 April, 2022… (see footnote at end of post)

Here’s another profile of Henry Beaufort that can be found in the Ghent Altarpiece. Again it’s based on the original drawing of the cardinal by Jan van Eyck, although this version presents him as a younger man with a full head of hair – and there is a reason for it being so.

This image is part of the right-hand-side group of men on the central panel. Beaufort appears distracted. His head is turned towards the edge of the frame, perhaps wistfully looking back on his past, or could his gaze be directed at the man on his left – possibly Hubert van Eyck or even another brother, Barthélemy?

If the figure in the fur hat is one of the Van Eyck family it’s likely to be Barthélemy. Here’s why.

The red hat worn by Beaufort and loose strands of hair beneath is a reference to the figure in the red coat placed on the extreme left of the group of riders in the Just Judges panel. In this instance the faceless figure is of Henry IV (Henry Bolingbroke), half-brother to Henry Beaufort through their father John of Gaunt. In his later life the English king was said to have suffered severe disfigurement, hence his hidden face as one of the judges. This would explain why Van Eyck has shown what appears to be a younger version of Beaufort in the group above. He is saying “this isn’t the cardinal but the King of England (before his disfigurement), Beaufort’s half-brother Henry Bolingbroke… see the family resemblance on his father’s side!”

This also explains why Jan Van Eyck has turned the Bolingbroke head to face the edge of the frame. He is referring to a section of the Just Judges group at the edge of the frame and the man in the fur hat inbetween the figure of Jan himself and the rider at the point of the group, John, Duke of Berry, who commissioned the Limbourg brothers to illuminate the Très Riche Heures. They were never able to complete the work, having all died with the plague in 1406. Nevertheless, work on the book continued and art historians attribute some of the pages to Barthélemy van Eyck. His relationship to Jan and Hubert van Eyck has never been established, but in this central panel of the Ghent Altarpiece Jan has possibly clarified this uncertainty in his usual cryptic style by creating this half-brother analogy.

As for the half-brother connection between Beaufort and Hubert van Eyck, the men are two of the four identities given to the figure on the white horse in the forefront of the Just Judges panel.

Could the central figure in this group from the Just Judges panel be Barthélemy van Eyck,
half-brother to Jan and Hubert van Eyck? The figure in the top right corner is a familiar  and shared profile of the Limbourg brothers in the Très Riche Heures.  Another manuscript produced for the Duke of Berry is the Turin-Milan Hours, for which some leaves are attributed to Jan and Hubert van Eyck. So is Barthélemy the ‘bridge’ between between the two manuscripts. Is Jan also saying that just as Bartélemy worked on completing the TRH following the death of the Limbourg brothers, so also he was commissioned to complete the Ghent Altarpiece following the death of his brother Hubert?

• More at this link: Not Niccolò Albergati but Henry Beaufort

• Images: closer to van eyck

UPDATE: Tuesday, 12 April, 2022

And if to confirm the hidden and disfigured face of Henry IV in the Just Judges panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, Barthélemy d’Eyck repeated a similar motif when he painted the January folio in the Très Riche Heures du Duc de Berry.

A group of three men are depicted approaching the marshall. The third man, dressed in black and with his face hidden, is Henry Bolingbroke, later Henry IV. His right hand points towards the seated prelate who is his half-brother Henry Beaufort.

More on the Trés Riche Heures at this link.