Monthly Archives: June 2021

Lines of succession

Posted on by

Another written source Hugo van der Goes called on so as to link Jan van Eyck and his brother Hubert in the St Vincent Panel of the Relic was Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia (Natural History). The Roman author’s ‘encyclopedia’ provides an account of a contest between two Greek artists, Apelles and Protogenes. Apelles was attached to the court of the Macedonian king Philip II, and later served his son Alexander the Great. His rival Protogenes resided in Rhodes.

Protogenes and Apelles

“A circumstance that happened to him [Apelles] in connection with Protogenes is worthy of notice. The latter was living at Rhodes, when Apelles disembarked there, desirous of seeing the works of a man whom he had hitherto only known by reputation. Accordingly, he repaired at once to the studio; Protogenes was not at home, but there happened to be a large panel upon the easel ready for painting, with an old woman who was left in charge. To his enquiries she made answer, that Protogenes was not at home, and then asked whom she should name as the visitor. “Here he is,” was the reply of Apelles, and seizing a brush, he traced with colour upon the panel an outline of a singularly minute fineness. Upon his return, the old woman mentioned to Protogenes what had happened. The artist, it is said, upon remarking the delicacy of the touch, instantly exclaimed that Apelles must have been the visitor, for that no other person was capable of executing anything so exquisitely perfect. So saying, he traced within the same outline a still finer outline, but with another colour, and then took his departure, with instructions to the woman to show it to the stranger, if he returned, and to let him know that this was the person whom he had come to see. It happened as he anticipated; Apelles returned, and vexed at finding himself thus surpassed, he took up another colour and split both of the outlines, leaving no possibility of anything finer being executed. Upon seeing this, Protogenes admitted that he was defeated, and at once flew to the harbour to look for his guest.”

Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
Jan and Hubert van Eyck, as Apelles and Protogenes

Jan van Eyck was sometimes referred to as Apelles by his contemporaries, such were his skills and knowledge as an artist, but there was another reason why he was compared to the Greek painter in this way. While Jan served Philip II, duke of Burgundy, as valet de chambre, he was also employed as the Burgundian court painter

“The Dukes  of Burgundy saw their ambitions in historical contexts. The fascination with Alexander the Great, revealed in their patronage, demonstrated their ambitions to be compared to this great ancient model. This interest further enhanced the status of individuals like Jan van Eyck. The comparison was made between the court of Alexander with his painter Apelles and the court of Philip the Good with his painter Jan van Eyck.”

Jan van Eyck as a Court Artist


But by relating Jan and Hubert van Eyck to the Pliny account of Apelles and Protogenes, Hugo van der Goes intended yet another connection to the Ghent Altarpiece – the Latin ‘quatrain’ inscribed on four of the frames of the Ghent Altarpiece, part of which declares Hubert van Eyck “the greatest painter there was” and his “brother Jan second in art”.

Part of the quatrain featured on one of the frames of the Ghent Altarpiece

However, although the consesus is that Jan is referring to himself as second best, Van der Goes may have interpreted the phrase “second in art” as “second in line”, that is Jan being the second artist born in the Van Eyck family, Hubert being the first – Protogenes (proto = original or first; gene = from genos, meaning generation of birth). Also, ‘Protogenes’… a subtle play on the word ‘Portuguese’ (Portogees) by Hugo van der Goes.

UPDATE July 21, 2021: So where in the Panel of the Relic is the “line of singularly minute fineness” to be found? It’s the black strap worn over the right shoulder of the figure of Jan van Eyck. In heraldic terms it represents a ‘bend’ or a line of partition placed on a shield (the shape of the white undergarment). A ‘bend’ is a band or strip running from the upper dexter corner of the shield to the lower sinster and can be further partitioned.

• More details about the Panel of the Relic in my next post.

The hollow tree

Posted on by

In my previous post I pointed out the connection to the ‘coffin’ in the St Vincent Panel of the Relic to the ‘hollow tree’ that St Bavo made his abode for a time, and how this further linked to another theme in the panel, Halloween and All Saints Day (All Hallows Day)

What I didn’t mention at the time was also the connection to the birth name given to St Bavo – Allowin.

The Relic Panel is ‘mirrored’ in a section of Rembrandt’s 1639 etching Death of a Virgin, which I posted a year ago at this link. The ‘hollow tree’ is also featured in the etching, and features Rembrandt, aka St Bavo, looking into the scene through a gap (the hollow) in the curtain representing the tree.

Jan van Eyck as a type of St Bavo stepping out of a ‘hollow tree’… Rembrandt mirroring the theme… and a 15th century limestone sculpture of St Bavo.

The likeness of Rembrandt is similar to a 15th century limestone sculpture of St Bavo shown above, now housed at the Met Museum in New York. Look closely at Rembrandt’s left arm in the etching and you will see the faint outline of the shape of a bird. This represents a falcon, one of the attributes associated with St Bavo.

Another etching of St Bavo was published in 1650 by the Dutch artist Pieter Southam. The saint is depicted in all his glory as a noble soldier before his conversion, but notice the way his cloak is open widely and the similarity to Rembrant’s version of appearing through an open curtain. Is Southam’s illustration a hat-tip to his contemporary as Rembrandt’s is to the Flemish artist Hugo van der Goes?

Rembrandt’s Death of a Virgin and Peter Southam’s St Bavo, Met Museum, New York

That the representations of St Bavo appear to be stepping out from the coffin or from behind the curtain relates to a passage from St Matthew’s gospel: The veil of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom; the earth quaked; the rocks split; the tombs opened and the bodies of many men holy men rose from the dead, and these, after resurrection, came out of the tombs and entered the Holy City and appeared to a number of people (29 : 51-53).

The Three Marys at the Tomb, by Hubert van Eyck, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

This passage also relates to Hubert van Eyck, placed right of the coffin in the Panel of the Relic, and one of his few extant paintings: The Three Marys at the Tomb (of the Risen Christ).

Rembrandt picked up on this, and made a group of the three women, two of them with their back to the viewer. (replacing Hubert and Lambert van Eyck). The Virgin Mary is seated on a ‘cushion’ chair, a reference to one of the other identities in the Panel of the Relic – the priestly figure in black, Pierre Cauchon.

• More on the Panel of the Relic in my next post.

Lights that shine in the dark

Posted on by

Mentioned in a previous post was Barthélemy van Eyck, an artist in the service of duke René of Anjou. He is credited with producing some of the Calendar folios of The Very Rich Hours belonging to John, duke of Berry.

René also acquired a Book of Hours originally illuminated by an unknown artist. He subsequently commissioned several more pages to add to the manuscript. One of the commissioned artists was Barthélemy van Eyck, responsible for the rather gruesome image shown here depicting René as a decomposing corpse. 

Book of Hours, Use of Paris (The ‘Hours of René of Anjou’), British Library, Egerton MS 1070

The manuscript (referred to as Egerton MS 1070) is kept by the British Library. It describes this particular folio as a memento-mori portrait placed at the beginning of the Office of the Dead. The banner reads, “Memento homo quod sinis es et in sinere reverteris” (Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return).

It is this folio which Hugo van der Goes has sourced to make the connection to René and Barthélemy van Eyck (as well as to the figures of Lambert and Jan van Eyck), and to reference another two saints in the frame, SS Michael and Bartholomew.

René of Anjou is one of four identities Van der Goes has given to the man in black in the Panel of the Relic (St Vincent Panels).

Detail of René of Anjou from the Matheron Diptych, Louvre, Paris

The link to St Michael derives from the Matheron Diptych by the French artist Nicolas Froment, a double portrait of René with his second wife Jeanne de Laval (Louvre, Paris). René is wearing the collar of the Order of St Michael founded by Louis XI of France in 1469. It was dedicated to the archangel Michael.

The collar is unusual in that it is made up of a series of scallop shells (the badge of pilgrims). Van der Goes makes the pilgrim connection to the pilgrim figure depicted by Jan van Eyck, but more subtly mirrors the shape of the shells in the waved and cockled pages of the holy book.

Another link to René of Anjou and the pilgrim figure – in this instance in the guise of John the Baptist – is the proclaimer’s coat which is made of camel hair.

René was a keeper of exotic animals and one of his menageries housed six camels. The shape of the camel legs  in the Baptist’s coat was pointed out in a previous post.

The next set of connections link the death and later translation of Jan van Eyck’s corpse. When he died in July 1441 he was initially buried in the precincts of the church of St Donatian, Bruges. Seven months later, in March 1442, at the request of his brother Lambert, permission was given for Jan’s body to be translated into the church and buried near the baptismal font. This is depicted in the Seven Sacraments painting by Rogier van der Weyden.

So here we have Hugo van der Goes creating a link between the figures of Lambert and René and also connecting the baptism theme. The exhumation of Jan’s body and translation also lends to the figure of Jan standing in front of what is understood to be an upright coffin, perhaps also signifying the upright nature of the man during his life. The motif also points to another painting by Van der Weyden, The Joseph Portrait, that shows Jan placed in front of an empty niche. This in turn sets up another theme in the panel which I shall post on at another time.

The rotting flesh of the René figure in the memento-mori is also a reminder of Jan van Eyck’s exhumation. Hugo van der Goes has deliberately arranged Jan’s hands in a way to echo those of the corpse. Even the left hand’s grip on the scroll is matched to Jan’s hold on his staff. The corpse’s stomach is represented by the dark area beneath Jan’s arms with the descending folds below his belt its disgorging contents, a combination of intestines and worms.

Notice also the tattered and torn state of the scroll held by the corpse. The scroll has a peculiar shape and hangs over the shroud representing Rene’s coat of arms and earthly kingdoms.  The shape of the scroll loosely resembles the Greek lambada, or the letter ‘l’ (λ). Combined with the bow shape, we arrive at a word that sounds like ´El-bow’, meaning God’s bow, a reminder of his covenant promise. And if we look to the corpse’s right arm, another Greek letter, Delta (Δ), is formed. confirmed by the ‘branches’ of the trees inside the shape of the counter. Also, the corpse’s elbow points to and confirms the ‘El-bow’ shape produced by the scroll.

Hugo has incorporated these elements in the pilgrim figure. A lower-case Delta (𝛿) symbol can be seen on the cuff of Jan’s sleeve; the tributaries are three pronounced veins on the back of his right hand. This can be understood in two ways: (1) As part of a trinitarian theme that runs throughout the St Vincent panels and (2) symbolic of the three Van Eyck brothers, Lambert, Hubert and Jan and their branches of the Van Eyck family. The Delta symbol is turned to point to the torn elbow, and so connects to the torn scroll and another branch of the Van Eyck family, Barthélemy.

Hugo visualised the unfolding scroll stemming from the pierced flesh of the memento-mori figure as an extended piece of peeling flesh. This was to introduce another Saint into the scene that linked to Barthélemy – his namesake Bartholomew, who was one of the Twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus. Bartholomew is said to have been martyred when flayed alive and his head cut off, hence the torn fabric at the elbow and the white blade-shapes underneath his loose camel skin. The shape of an axehead is formed in the cuff of the left sleeve below the head of Elijah formed from the knuckles on the left hand, and a reminder that John the Baptist was also beheaded. Another account claims Bartholomew was crucified upside down, which may also explain why the Delta symbol is shown upside down beneath the profile of Christ crucified.

• More on the Panel of the Relic in my next post.

Panel of the Relic… more connections

Posted on by

Over the years art historians have speculated on the identity of the 60 figures in the St Vincent Panels, without ever able to agree on a definitive line-up. Their efforts, it seems, have always focused on linking the 58 males and two women to Portuguese society, perhaps led by the fact the panels were discovered in the 1880s – in the monastery of Saint Vicente de Fora, in Lisbon.

So for some figures multiple names have been posited for their identity. In a sense this mixed bag of identities held an answer historians were searching for, but had yet to consider since they were focused on producing a single identity for each figure. The fact is that each figure usually has more that one identity, depending on a particular theme the artist embedded. While the painting is officially attributed to the Portuguese painter Nuno Gonçalves, my preference is the Flemish artist Hugo van der Goes who is featured on the back row of the Panel of the Prince. It may be that the work and the commission was shared between the two men, similar to the Ghent Altarpiece attributed to the brothers Jan and Hubert van Eyck.

The Ghent Altarpiece is perhaps the principal source of inspiration for the St Vincent Panels, and especially for the concept of using multiple identities. In the Just Judges panel Jan van Eyck has applied four identities to each of the ten riders. This was the challenge for Hugo van der Goes, to create a similar work embedded with multiple identities. To truly get to grips with the St Vincent Panels one has to understand the embedded themes and iconography Jan introduced in the Ghent Altarpiece. Without this knowledge or understanding it is not possible to grasp and comprehend all that Van der Goes presented in the St Vincent Panels.

Another painter, Barthélemy van Eyck, had knowledge of Jan’s disguised iconography in the Ghent Altarpiece and incorporated parts in the January folio he produced for Les Très Riche Heures when the manuscript was later in the possession of René d’Anjou. It’s also likely, Lambert van Eyck, a brother to Jan and Hubert, had knowledge of the cryptic narratives in the Ghent Altarpiece.

In the Panel of the Relic, Hugo van der Goes depicted the likeness of the three Van Eyck brothers. Barthélemy is also referenced but not seen and is a second ‘hidden’ identity given to Jan van Eyck. Jan also appears as John the Baptist, his name saint and the name of the church the Ghent Altarpiece was originally commissioned for until it was later renamed as St Bavo after it was rebuilt in the 16th century. St Bavo is the patron saint of Ghent.

Hugo van der Goes sourced a painting by Rogier van der Weyden for the image of Jan Van Eyck. The painting, now fragmented, portrayed Jan as Joseph the husband of the Virgin Mary, The section, which is housed at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon shows part of a church tower with a vacant aedicula to house a statue of some kind. The platform and canopy are there but the statue is missing. It’s very likely this motif partly inspired Van der Goes to portray Jan standing in front of an empty wooden box, which most observers presume is a coffin.

The wooden box acts as a visible link between the two Van Eyck brothers, so does it have other levels of meaning associated with the two figures? It’s constructed from a number of panels. Could it point to the wood panels that Jan and Hubert painted on to create the Ghent Altarpiece, perhaps a particular unfinished panel started by Hubert before his death in 1426? The Ghent Altarpiece is also known as The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.

Observe Van Eyck’s red hat, shaped as a resting lamb, and a pointer to Jan’s self-portrait titled Man in a Red Turban, painted a year after the Ghent Altarpiece was unveiled. Hugo would have understood that the turban’s intricate folds also depicted the ‘Lamb of God’.

The Ghent Altarpiece was commissioned by the prosperous Flemish merchant and nobleman Joos Vijd, for his funeral bay chapel in the Ghent church of St John the Baptist. When completed in 1432 the painting was placed above the St Bavo altar in what became known as the Vidj Chapel.

St Bavo is the patron saint of Ghent. He came to faith late in life ‘after leading a worldly and dissipated life’ as a knight for nearly fifty years. His conversion came following his wife’s death and after listening to the preaching of St Amand. For a while he attached himself to a Benedictine monastery in Ghent but eventually moved out and lived a more secluded life out of a hollow tree in the forest of Malemedum, surviving only on herbs and spring water. The hollow tree, a natural harbour for shelter and rest, and a bay within the forest, has partly inspired Hugo’s empty wooden box. The mention of forest connects to the figure alongside of St Hubert whose conversion took place while hunting in a forest. However, the principle connection to the empty coffin or the hollow tree, is a pun to reference All Hallows’ Evening (Halloween, also known as All Saints’ Eve) followed by All Hallows Day – the Christian feast of All Saints; hence the many references made to Christian saints in the Panel of the Relic. The reference also serves to link to the phrase “communion of saints” (sanctorum communionem) declared in the Apostles’ Creed, which in turn connects to an earlier mention of the medieval poem: William’s Vision of Piers the Plowman.

There are other links. Understood as a niche or a nook, the box leads to a prevalent theme in the Panel of the Relic, that of books, and one of the most obvious being the holy book held by Jean Jouffroy. At the time of the painting Hugo van der Goes was a lay brother in a religious community known as the Brethren of the Common Life based at the Red Cloister priory near Brussels that housed an impressive collection of books as well as a workshop for book production.

The pious way of life adopted by the brothers of the community was also known as Devotio Moderna (the Modern Devotion). An early follower was Thomas á Kempis who wrote the popular book on Christian meditation, The Imitation of Christ. One of the famous quotes attributed to Thomas is used by Hugo to link the wooden box with books: “I have sought everywhere for peace, but found it not, except in nooks and in books.” Hugo repeated the quote in a later painting known as the Dormition of the Virgin, depicting Kempes gripping the headboard of the Virgin’s bed and decorated with the carved shape of an open book.

Another written source Hugo called on so as to link Jan and his brother Hubert to a specific feature of the Ghent Altarpiece was Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia (Natural History). The Roman author’s ‘encyclopedia’ provides an account of a contest between two Greek artists, Apelles and Protogenes. Apelles was attached to the court of the Macedonian king Philip II, and later served his son Alexander the Great. His rival Protogenes resided in Rhodes.

• More on this in my next post

Plowmen, poems and puns

Posted on by

In a previous post I revealed how Hugo van der Goes embedded a reference in the Panel of the Relic to a medieval poem titled William’s Vision of Piers the Plowman. This was to mimic the references Jan van Eyck made to Geoffrey Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales in the Ghent Altarpiece. Another ‘tale’ that was given a place in the Just Judges panel of the altarpiece was the Plowman’s Tale, said to have been sourced from Pierce the Plowman’s Crede. Van der Goes also included references to these two poems in the Panel of the Relic.

Barthélemy van Eyck picked up on Jan’s references and depicted the conversation between the Pelican and the Griffin in the January folio of Les Très Riche Heures. Hugo went further back in time for his source to a similar debate found in the poem, The Owl and the Nightingale.

It’s not difficult to recognise Hugo’s owl in the Panel of the Relic. It’s the figure portrayed as Jean Jouffroy, except that in this scenario the figure is given a fourth identity, William of Paris, a Dominican priest and theologian, and confessor to the French king Philip IV. He was made Inquisitor of France in 1303 and began a campaign against the Templars in 1307.

The other three identities Hugo has applied to the figure in black is Jean Jouffroy, René of Anjou and Pierre Cauchon.

Detail from Rogier van der Weyden’s Seven Sacraments

The link to William of Paris comes via the group of three Van Eyck brother alongside Jouffroy. The four men are also grouped in one of the scenes from the triptych painted by Rogier van der Weyden, known as the Seven Sacraments Altarpiece (1445-1450), now displayed in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. 

William of Paris completed writing the Dialogus de Septem Sacramentis (Dialogue of the Seven Sacraments) in 1314, the same year the Templar knight Geoffroi de Charney was executed, burnt at the stake on a small strip of land in the River Seine.

The nightingale can be discovered in the central panel of the surplice worn by man in the red collar, already identified as symbolic of the Templar flag, the Beauceant. The panel also represents the island in the Seine, known as both Jews Island and Templars Island.

As stated in an earlier post Hugo van der Goes was an accomplished heraldic artist. ‘Engrailed’ around the top of the centre panel in the surplice is a series of of border arcs forming outward points. ‘Knight’ coupled with ‘engrail(ed)’ puns as ‘nightingale’! 

Not without coincidence is the engrailed feature and the eyes of the man in black placed on the same level, although the debate makes clear the owl and the nightingale did not see ‘eye to eye’.

Sourcing the sun and the moon

Posted on by

In yesterday’s post about the Panel of the Relic, I mentioned the Limbourg Brothers, John duke of Berry, and a partial solar eclipse. What I wasn’t aware of when I published the post was some parts of the world had or would experience different extents of a solar eclipse that day!

So who or what inspired Hugo van der Goes to reference a solar eclipse in the Panel of the Relic? The idea is rooted in the January calendar folio of the manuscript Les Très Riches Heures. The detail is presented here and shows the duke of Berry seated in front of a circular fire screen. Standing on his left is Pol Limbourg, his left arm and elbow cutting into the screen that represents the moon. The boat-shaped serving dish forms another eclipse motif – the golden sun.

Also mentioned in the previous post was the possibility that some parts of the Calendar folios were not completed until the 1440s, probably by Barthélemy van Eyck. His relative Jan van Eyck died in 1441, nine years after completing the Ghent Altarpiece. Barthélemy made references to the famous polyptych in the January folio, some of which Hugo has picked up on and transferred to the St Vincent Panels.

The duke of Berry’s spiked hat is another motif Hugo has matched with the porcupine relic reference explained in a previous post, except that Berry’s hat also represents the Crown of Thorns. The duke owned several ‘Holy Thorns’, one of which still exists and is mounted in a reliquary displayed in the British Museum.

More signs and pointers

Posted on by

It’s about three weeks since I last posted information about the St Vincent Panels and in particular the Panel of the Relic. All previous posts with links are listed in the masthead menu under the title St Vincent Panels.

Detail from the Panel of the Relic (St Vincent Panels).

In a post made in April I identified the figure in black from the Panel of the Relic as being two French prelates, Jean Jouffroy doubling up as Pierre Cauchon, and connected them to the French heroine Joan of Arc and the surplice worn by Hubert van Eyck, suggesting the shaped arch in the centre represented the stake Joan was tied to when burnt alive, and its pattern symbolised the flames.

There is also a secondary French connection to the shaped arch or stake which relates and plays on the name Jouffroy.

The link is what was a small island in the middle of the River Seine in Paris known as île aux Juifs – Jews Island. It was named for the number of executions of Jews that took place there during the Middle Ages. The Island is also known as Île des Templiers – Templars Island – after several members of the Order of Templars were executed by being burnt at the stake on March 18, 1314.

The Burning of the Templars at Paris (British Library). Notice the Isle in the River Seine.

One notable Templar was Geoffroi de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy for the Knights Templar  – the name Geoffroi connecting to the name Jouffroi.

Also known as Guy d’Auvergne, Geoffroi de Charney and the Knights Templar reference is disguised as a third identity for the figure already revealed as representing Hubert van Eyck and St Hubert. The white surplice, the red colour and the black background to the figure are a combination of colours that make up the Templar beauceant; the cross-bow shape of the collar is substituted for the conventional red cross.

The Templar flag, the Beauceant, matched to the colour arrangement seen in the figure of Hubert.

Another Geoffroi de Charny (not Charney) came to prominence as a French knight and author after the death of Guy d’Auvergne. He wrote books on chivalry and along with the French king John II was a founding member of the Company of the Star. De Charney was also the carrier of the Oriflamme (Golden Flame), the standard of the crown of France, and died at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356 defending the French king. 

The Battle of Poitiers shows the fallen figure of Geoffroi de Charny, bearer of the Oriflamme.
Illustration by Graham Turner, from the book: Poitiers1356, The Capture of a King, by David Nicolle.

Observe that the ‘flamed’ centre section of the surplice is crowned, and the transparency of the fabric allows for “see through” to the red cassock underneath, a subtle pointer to the garment representing the Oriflamme. This provides a link to the ‘pilgrim’ figure of Jan van Eyck in the guise of John the Baptist, depicted wearing a white garment under his camel-skin coat. 

The Company of the Star was an order of chivalry and its insignia was a white star on red enamel inscribed with the motto: The star shows the way to kings, a reference to the star that led the three kings or magi to Bethlehem. So here we have a link to the star featured on the breast of Jouffroy representing the Order of Our Lady of Bethlehem. The star also unites with the two saints in the back row, Hubert and Lambert. Both served as bishops of Maastricht, and the city’s coat or arms features a white star on a red shield. As a group, the three red-shield references, link to the coat of arms of the de Charny family: three white shields or escutcheons emblazoned on a red shield.

Left to right: The Order of the Star, the Star of Maastricht, the star depicteed on Jean Jouffroy and associated with the Order of Our Lady of Bethlehem, and the coat of arms of Geoffroi de Charny.

Geoffroi de Charny and his wife Jeanne de Vergy were once owners of what is known as the Holy Shroud – the Shroud of Turin – said to be the cloth that covered the body of Jesus when he was entombed after his crucifixion. Jan van Eyck referred to the Shroud in at least two of his famous paintings: The Arnolfini Portrait and his self portrait of a Man in a Red Turban. The Shroud is also featured in the illuminated manuscript The Turin-Milan Hours on one of the leaves attributed to Jan van Eyck, The Birth of John the Baptist.

The manuscript once belonged to John, Duke of Berry, third son of King John II of France, founder of the Company, or Order, of the Star. The Duke, a collector of books (as Jouffroy was) also owned another famous manuscript: Les Très Riches Heures (The Very Rich Hours), magnificently illustrated by the three Limbourg brothers, Paul, Herman and Johan but incomplete when all three brothers and the Duke of Berry died in 1416, probably of the plague. It is suggested that the calendar miniatures were worked on as late as the 1440s, possibly by Barthélemy van Eyck, thought to be related to the three Van Eyck brothers. Barthélemy was in the service of Duke René of Anjou who became the owner of Les Très Riche Heures following the death of John of Berry who is the third identity that Hugo van der Goes has given to the figure in red.

Detail from the March folio of the Calendar series featured in Les Très Riches Heures.

Barthélemy van Eyck is also identified with being the “Master of René of Anjou” and the alias “Master of the Shadows”, the latter associated with the shadow features depicted in Les Très Riche Heures. Van der Goes points to this style by showing the right elbow of the man in black ‘eclipsing’ the right arm of the pilgrim, except in this scenario the composition is points to a shadow or eclipse feature in the March calendar folio of the Très Riche Heures. Here we see a field being ploughed by two oxen. The one in the forefront is brown; the other black, seemingly eclipsed or a shadow of the brown ox.

Detail from the Panel of the Relic suggesting a partial Lunar eclipse.

The ‘elbow’ eclipse also refers to a solar eclipse where a segment of the Earth is immersed in shadow cast by the Moon partially blocking out sunlight. The brown colouring of the pilgrim’s coat represents the earth, while the crescent-shaped, white hair of the kneeling man in red represents the moon. Notice, too, the sun flare extending from the elbow, and another reference to the Oriflamme. More on this theme in a future post.

This eclipse motif leads to another identity given to the pilgrim figure, and is one of a “series of pointers’ Hugo van der Goes has embedded in the panel… pointing stars, pointed weapons, porcupine needles, pointing fingers and hands, pointed ears – hare and donkey and the left ear of Jouffroy, pointed stake,  pointed saw teeth, cutting instruments, hence the reference to the plough (and symbolic of another heavenly navigator. All these pointed motifs can be summed up by the word ‘pierce’ – even the fingers and hand, a reference to Christ’s invitation to Thomas to examine the piercing he suffered on the Cross. And this brings us to connect the piercing action of the plough to the medieval poem: William’s Vision of Piers the Plowman, attributed to William Langland.

• More on this in a future post.

More on the Mantuan Roundel

Posted on by

So who did produce the Mantuan Roundel, the Renaissance artefact which the UK has placed a temporary export ban on?

Stuart Lochead, a member of the RCEWA which recommended the ban, has posited the names of two Italian artists: Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506) and Donatello (1386-1466).

My money is on Mantegna as the bronze roundel can be linked specifically to two paintings mentioned elsewhere on this blog, and the death of Donatello is prior to the paintings.

In 1488 Mantegna, the court painter at Mantua at the time, was invited by Pope Innocent VIII to paint frescoes at the Villa Belvedere in Rome which overlooked the old St Peter’s Basilica. He returned to Mantua two years later in 1490.

During his stay in Rome he would have had ample time to take in and study the work of other artists displayed in the Vatican, particularly the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. The North and South walls of the ‘Great Chapel’ were decorated with scenes from the lives of Moses and Jesus, painted by a team of Renaissance artists that included Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio. Completion was in 1482.

One scene in particular, the Testament and Death of Moses, attributed to Luca Signorelli, provides the link to the Mantuan roundel. The central section shows a naked man seated on a tree trunk. He represents Leonardo da Vinci, and is the basis for the seated figure of Mars in the Mantuan roundel.

Mantegna extended the roundel connection to a later work he produced for Isabella d’Este, the painting known as Parnassus in which the Mars, Venus, Cupid and Vulcan are included along with other mythological figures. Leonardo, an acomplished musician ‘particularly good at playing the lyre’ is also represented in the painting as one of the identities given to the figure of Orpheus sat on a tree stump. This motif is a direct reference to the Leonardo figure in the Sistine Chapel fresco and perhaps Mantegna making a caustic comment by punning on the word lyre.

However, the heads of the three main figures in the roundel are not direct representations of Lenardo, but rather his assistant Salaì, seemingly adapted from drawings that appear in Leonardo’s notebooks. Leonardo also made mention in his notebooks that Salaì was a liar and a thief, and it is probably in this connection why Mantegna utilised the likenesses of Salaì for the roundel and in the Parnassus painting.

Leonardo’s drawing shown here of the Heads of an Old Man and Youth can be likened to the head of Leonardo and the bald-headed man looking down on him as seen in the Sistine Chapel fresco. Even the ‘wing’ collar of the old man is mirrored on the fresco. The wing motif also shows up at the head of the caduceus tucked behind the head of Mars in the roundel. The snake-entwined wing of the caduceus is also echoed in the figure of Orpheus – the lyre resting on the shoulder being the wing, while the musician’s left foot and big toe is shaped to represent the serpent’s head about to bite the ankle of Eurydice and send her to Hades.

This brief presentation is simply to point to a connection between Mantegna and the Mantuan Roundel. There are more references in the work which lend to links with Leonardo and Mantegna’s Parnassus painting.