Several features in the Prayer on the Shore folio connect with the donor panel of the Mérode Altarpiece: The Hook and Cod references; the bearded man with the straw hat; the rider on a white horse; the pennant on the pole; the group of knights in the wake of Count William of Ostrevant; the tower castle in the background; the pack of chasing dogs; and even the welcoming group of women. I shall explain the connections at some other time.
The Prayer on the Shore folio is attributed to Jan van Eyck, or his brother Hubert, so it is no surprise that similar elements show up in the Ghent Altarpiece. One in particular is the double image that appears on the upper section of Count William’s right arm, intended to confirm his safe passage across the English Channel mentioned in my previous post.
Unfortunately the quality of the black and white copy is not perfect but the double image on the sleeve forms the head of a dog combined with the head of a man. The dog’s ears are large and pointed and also shape the face of a man meant to represent Christ. The dog-head symbolises St Christopher, patron saint of travellers, who carried Christ on his back across a river. In Eastern Orthodox iconography St Christopher is represented with the head of a dog.
Jan van Eyck expanded on this motif in the Pilgrims panel of the Ghent Altarpiece. See this link: A bit of the dog in all of us.
There are a couple of dog-head features in the Mérode Altarpiece. One appears on the left side of the bearded figure; the other, close to the heels of the kneeling figure representing William of Ostrevant. The count died in 1417 from an infection caused by a dog bite.
Detail from the Pilgrims panel of the Ghent Altarpiece showing St Christopher.
This type of image representing God the Father is a common feature found in breviaries produced during the Middle Ages. It appears on the folio known as The infant Christ sent to Earth from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves.
It is also a pointer to a similar image on a folio which was part of the Turin-Milan Hours. The folio no longer exists except for a black and white photographic copy made before some pages of the illuminated manuscript were destroyed by fire in 1904.
Prayer on the Shore by Hand G, Turin-Milan Hours,Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino
The folio is titled Prayer on the Shore and attributed to ‘Hand G’, generally accepted to be either Jan van Eyck or his brother Hubert.
The scene illustrates the safe return of William, Count of Ostrevant, and his entourage following a stormy crossing of the English Channel. William’s visit to England in 1390 was in response to an invitation extended by King John II to knights from various countries to compete in a tournament festival. During his visit William was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter. He is depicted seated on a white horse with his hands joined and head raised in prayer, giving glory to God the Father and the heavenly angels for his safe return to shore
Wiliam’ father was Albert I of Bavaria, and when he died in 1404, his son succeeded him as Count of Holland, Hainaut and Zealand, and Duke of Bavaria-Straubing.
But there may be another interpretation to this scene. It references the conflict in the County of Holland between 1350 and 1490 known as the Hook and Cod Wars. I posted about this and the Prayer on the Shore folio some five years ago at this link: The Fisherman’s Tale.
Donor panel, Mérode Altarpiece
Whoever painted the donor panel for the Mérode Altarpiece seemingly referenced the Prayer of the Shore folio and its Hook and Cod narrative to point to one of probably three levels of identities applied to the kneeling donors: William, Count of Holland (1365-1417) and his wife Margaret of Burgundy (1374-1441).
I pointed out the Hook feature in my previous post, but what about the Cod reference? There are two: Cod as in bag or purse, and Cod as in fish. William’s purse suspended from the belt around his waist is plainly seen, but the second Cod reference is not so obvious. It requires rotating the panel 90º clockwise.
Now William’s black gown can be viewed as the shape of a fish, it’s open neck as the mouth, and the section of folds to the left of (or below) the belt as the fish tail. The feature can also be recognised as an analogy of Christ’s Resurrection as described in the Book of Jonah, the prophet who lived for three days in the belly of a great fish before “God spoke to the fish, which then vomited Jonah onto the shore”, and so another reference to the onshore and safe arrival of William after crossing the English Channel. This narrative links to another in the panel which I shall present in a future post.
Margaret, too, is also featured as a fish, but the tail is indicated above her belt. That behind her stands the bearded painter Robert Campin (d. 1444) is not without coincidence. In 1432 Campin was prosecuted for adultery and sentenced to banishment for a year. However, Margaret of Burgundy intervened and Campin’s sentence was reduced to a fine instead. This wasn’t the first time the painter had been summoned to court. In 1427, for his role in local political disturbances, he was sentenced to undertake a pilgrimage, generally assumed to St Gillies in Provence. However, the painter of the patron’s panel has indicated that the pilgrimage destination may have been to Houghton St Giles at Walsingham in England.
Update: September 28, 2023:
The Flemish painter Hugo Van der Goes adopted and adapted the Mérode Altarpiece patron panel when he painted the Friars Panel in the famous polyptych known as the Saint Vincent panels.
The fish references are there in the shape of the two foremost friars, so is the representation of Robert Campin, portrayed by Van der Goes as St Augustine of Hippo.
The St Vincent Panels are attributed to the Portuguese painter Nuno Gonçalves, but all the evidence points to Hugo Van der Goes as being the artist who produced the work.
In my previous post I mentioned how the unknown artist who painted the Infant Sent to Earth folio countered some of the features of the St Joseph figure in the Mérode Altarpiece.
The ‘Master of Catherine of Cleves’ took his lead from a counter feature embedded in the patrons panel of the Mérode Altarpiece. It appears between the edge of the main door and the thigh of the kneeling male patron as a horn or a hook. Both shapes are relevant.
The horn or hook counter… Cleves coat of arms… demon or bull…
That it’s positioned under the man’s arm can be understood as a reference to a coat of arms. It connects to an underarm feature on the female figure that I pointed out in a previous post – what appears to be a demon’s visage.
When paired, they can be recognised as the bull or demon (take your pick) that appears on the helm of the Cleves family coat of arms. The artist separated or ‘cleaved’ the two items to pun on the name Cleves, in the same way the woman’s dress is split or cleaved.
The Master of Catherine of Cleves picked up on this and adapted the feature for his figure of the fisherman whose coat is cleaved or separated at the hem (not helm) to reveal a gold coloured undergarment shaped as an axehead and its sharpened edge, and so refers back to the axehead placed at the feet of the carpenter in the St Joseph panel of the Mérode Altarpiece.
So could the two kneeling figures in the patron’s panel be intended to portray Catherine of Cleves and her husband Arnold, Duke of Guilders?
• I shall explain in my next post how the counter feature can also be considered as representing a hook.
MS M.917/945, ff. 84v–85r, Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Morgan Library and Museum
This folio is from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, an illuminated manuscript commissioned for Catherine, Duchess of Guilders when she married Arnold, Duke of Guilders in January 1430. The manuscript’s completion date is put at between 1434 and 1440.
The folio is referred to as The Infant Christ Sent to Earth, and was inspired by the Mérode Altarpiece, the triptych attributed to the workshop of Robert Campin.
Mérode Altarpiece, Workshop of Robert Campin, The Met Cloisters
The most obvious link is the style of the Infant Christ bearing his Cross. The motif also appears in the central panel of the Mérode Altarpiece depicting the Annunciation to Mary.
But there is another prominent feature in the folio that links to the altarpiece, and the St Joseph panel in particular, the border illustration at the foot of the page of a man fishing by the side of a pool.
The unknown artist, but referred to as the Master of Catherine of Cleves, has modified the St Joseph figure to create a new identity, that of the fisherman.
The common identifier is the blue chaperon, except that the tail-end hangs to the opposite shoulder.
Countering is another technique; Joseph sits, the fisherman kneels; the colour of Joseph’s red sleeves becomes the colour of the fisherman’s coat; Joseph’s modest, dull brown coat becomes the rich gold colour of the fisherman’s undercoat; the carpenter’s left hand clasps a piece of wood while the fisherman’s left hand grips a wooden pole, and his right hand guides the attached net into the basket’s hole; Joseph’s right hand shows a similar action, guiding the gimlet drill into a mark to make another hole in the wood for constructing a “bait-box”, as seen in the margin illustration.
• There are other features in the folio adapted from the Mérode Altarpiece and I will post on these at another time.
Detail from the St Joseph panel of the Mérode Altarpiece, The Met Cloisters
Here’s another version of the demon with the wide mouth, as portrayed in the Monsaraz fresco known as the Good and Bad Judge.
It features on the St Vincent polyptych’s Panel of the Fishermen, looking out from under the Pharisee’s green garment and above his praying hands. There are no bulging eyes but Hugo van der Goes included a prominent horn feature instead.
Update: September 17, 2023
So what else could have inspired Van der Goes to place the demon undercover alongside the the praying hand? A similar motif appears in the donor panel of the Merode Altarpiece, concealed alongside the woman’s waist and above her hands clasped in prayer. The pin from the waistband’s clasp serves as the demon’s wide mouth.
The double reference to the word ‘clasp’ also points to the clasp feature on the shoulder of the kneeling man in the Panel of the Prince as well as the demon’s clasping hand on the shoulder of the judge in the Monsaraz fresco (see previous post).
I’ve lightened the image and removed some of the surface craquelure to make the motif clearer.
The Donor Panel of the Mérode Altarpiece. The Met Cloisters
Notice the demon’s claw that grips the shoulder of the judge in the Monsaraz Fresco; similar motifs are located in two other paintings associated with the fresco.
(1) In a side panel of the Mélrode Altarpiece, Joseph’s claw-shaped, right hand grips the shoulder of the drill.
(2) As a bone feature on the shoulder of the kneeling figure in the St Vincent polyptych’s Panel of the Prince.
Below is another variation of the demon appearing at the shoulder in the Panel of the Archbishop, and a reference to the maxim, “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil”.
In my previous post I forgot to point out how the demon’s extended ear in the Monsaraz fresco is matched to the pincer on St Joseph’s carpentry table in the Mérode Altarpiece.
Notice the wood shavings meant to match the demon’s curled beard!
“See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil”, Monsaraz Fresco, Portugal, unknown painterTemptation of St Joseph the Carpenter panel, after 1432, (Rogier Van der Weyden?) Mérode Altarpiece, Metropolitan Museum, New York
Portrait of a Man, by Robert Campin National Gallery LondonSt Joseph, by Rogier van der Weyden (reversed) Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, LisbonJohn the Baptist, St Vincent Panels, by Hugo Van der Goes Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon
In October, 2020, I posted an item connecting the Mérode Altarpiece and the St Vincent Panels, and suggested that the bearded figure in the Panel of the Friars represented Robert Campin, the man standing behind the kneeling donors featured in the left wing of the Mérode Altarpiece.
The altarpiece is attributed to Robert Campin and his workshop, and housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
Another feature in the donor panel connects to the St Vincent Panels and to some paintings by Jan van Eyck as well.
It’s a reference to the English village of Templecombe in Somerset, famous for the discovery of what is known as the Templecombe Head, a panel painting said to of either Jesus Christ or St John the Baptist, and discovered in 1944 in the ceiling of a local cottage. The panel is now displayed in the parish church of St Mary.
The Temple feature in the Mérode side panel is the building located above the open door in the crenellated garden wall, The formation of crenels or merlons can be viewed as resembling teeth. The indented formation also hints at a relationship or contract known as an indenture, which could suggest that this panel, said to have been produced at a later date than the Annunciation panel, may have been painted by an artist apprenticed or tied to Campin’s workshop.
“An indented document was usually, if not always, written in two or more identical versions. Orig. these were written on a single sheet of parchment and then cut apart along a zigzag, or ‘indented’ line. Each party to the agreement retained one copy, which he could readily authenticate by matching its serrate edge with that of another copy.” [ Middle English Compendium]
This joining together also implies a “mutual covenant” and here the artist brings together the battlements as one half of the “contract” and the skyline or heavens as the other. The cloud formation, though not well defined, is meant to represent the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and God’s binding covenant with the three people below.
The crenels can also be considered as referencing the word “Combe” which, in geology terms, is “a dry valley in a limestone or chalk escarpment” which in turn is “a long steep slope separating areas of land at different heights”.
Combe sounds like or is pronounced as “comb”, as in teeth of a comb. So binding the Temple with the crenellations – the teeth of a comb – we arrive at the word Templecombe. Teeth also connects to one of the identifiers given to the kneeling male donor. Yes, each of the three main figures has more than one identity.
Finally, the Templecombe reference in the Panel of the Relic is shown at this link: Hugo’s hat-tip to Jan Van Eyck. There are also references to serrations in this panel, namely the edges of the relic and the saw feature. The relic held by Cardinal Henry Beaufort and shaped as a porcupine is meant to represent part of the skull of John the Baptist. The serrated edge of the saw appears alongside the cardinal’s right cheek.
The image of the cardinal is based on Jan van Eyck’s painting of the prelate and also embeds a reference to Templecombe.
C A T C H L I G H T 
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