This illustration appears in an allegorical treatise written by René d’Anjou in 1455, titled Le Mortifiement de Vaine Plaisance (The Mortification of Vain Pleasure). 

There are eight surviving copies of the original manuscript. This folio detail is from the manuscript housed at the Bodmer Library, Cologny, Switzerland. It was illustrated by the French illuminator Jean Colombe and copied from the lost original painted by Barthélemy d’Eyck, a relative of the brothers Jan and Hubert van Eyck.

As far as I understand, what has never been recognised is the close link with a section of this folio and the Van Eyck brothers’ painting of the Ghent Altarpiece.

The four figures, left to right, represent Grace, Faith, Hope and Sovereign Love. In other versions of the folio the kneeling figure is portrayed as a woman, but in this example, although the faceless figure has long blonde hair, it can also be visualised as a male, perhaps even representing the author “Good King René”, as he was known in France.

That the figure is faceless is a clue to the source of its inspiration, a feature in the Just Judges panel of the Ghent Altarpiece. Of the ten riders seen in the panel, only one is faceless. Jan van Eyck also applied more than one identity to each rider. One given to the faceless rider is René, and in this instance portrayed as Count of Piedmont.

Riding in front of René is a figure in blue, and the only one of the ten riders not wearing a head cover. In this instance the person represents Joan of Arc with her hair cut short and dressed as a man. Rene accompanied Joan in some of her battles against English forces, notably at Orléans.

Joan had three ensigns made, two of which were for military use: a large battle standard which she carried, and a small pennon for her squire. Joan also had a shield blazoned with her family coat of arms.

The battle standard was painted with an image of Christ as Saviour of the world with an archangel either side representing Gabriel and Michael. The pennon depicted an Annunciation scene showing Gabriel and the Virgin Mary.

Shaped into the rocks above the figure of Joan in the Just Judges panel is a representation of the Annunciation. Gabriel kneels before the Virgin to his right. Notice the small white flowers –lilies –carried by Gabriel, and more flowers at the side of the Virgin’s head, arranged to represent a descending dove – the Holy Spirit. The various facets and levels of the rocky backdrop present other scenarios associated with Joan and hint at a major theme of the altarpiece, a process of transition and transformation; of pilgrimage and conversion; changing the face of the earth and faces of men and women, so to speak. For example, the figure of Joan of Arc also transforms into Richard II.

Depicted between the figures of René and Joan is the Dauphin Charles of Orléans, later to be crowned as the French King Charles VII after Joan had led his forces to victory against the English. 

When Charles was baptised in 1394, to commemorate the occasion his father Louis, the younger brother of King Charles VI, established the Order of the Porcupine. The Order’s insignia featured a gold porcupine set on a green-enamelled base suspended from a twist of three gold chains. When knights were enrolled they received a gold ring adorned by a cameo engraved with a porcupine image, and so the Order was also known as the Ordre du Camail (Order of the Cameo).

Van Eyck’s portrayal of the dauphin Charles refers to the Order’s insignia. Two, not three gold chains are entwined and hang over the back of the dauphin’s tunic. Jan puns on the French word “camail (cameo)” with the word “camel”, a reference to the dauphin’s hump-shaped hat. This, in turn, connects to the figure of René, count of Piedmont, who kept camels at his castle in Angers in the Loire Valley. Notice the castle shaped hat.

But there’s no sign of a porcupine attached to the chains. Instead, Van Eyck has substituted the prickly porcupine with a reference to another rodent – the squirrel – represented by the fur hat worn by the rider in the foreground, Henry Beaufort the second illegitimate son of John of Gaunt (Ghent) and his mistress Katherine Swynford. Half hidden or buried by the peak is the shape of a hazelnut, a favourite fruit of squirrels.

Here Van Eyck introduces another scenario associated with Henry Beaufort. The visible part of the hazelnut is the pointed end of the kernel known as the stigma. The other end of the kernel, often appearing as a heart shape, is the face of Beaufort. In this instance the heart shape face and the stigma are connected by the three-stripe pattern of the hat’s peak. This feature is formed by sewing together the underside and back of the squirrel pelts in a pattern known as a vair (a concept of variation). The term also appears as one of two fur tinctures in heraldry design.

Van Eyck, who frequently puns visually and verbally in his paintings, is disclosing an episode in Beaufort’s early vocation as a prelate when he was bishop of Lincoln and had an illegitimate daughter named Jane. The mother’s identity was never officially disclosed. She remained faceless. Stigma: “a mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality or person.” A vair: affair. 

Beaufort never denied his affair and would “face up to” (faire face à) his responsibility by providing for his daughter’s needs. He later arranged her marriage to Sir Edward Stradling and both were named as beneficiaries in his will.

So how do these features found in the Just Judges panel connect to the folio from the Mortification of Vain Pleasure manuscript?

Let’s start with the kneeling faceless figure, draped in a white cope with a shield or banner-shaped mantle on the shoulder and embroidered with a depiction of the Annunciation. Notice how the banner’s shape picks up on the outline of the gold chain hanging on the back of the dauphin Charles. The Annunciation reference points to the same scene outlined in the rock formation behind the figure of Joan of Arc. 

As mentioned earlier, Joan had three ensigns made. The third was a banner shaped as the mantle on the back of the kneeling figure. It was used only when Joan gathered priests at times of prayer. On it was painted an image depicting the Crucified Christ, echoed by the four figures in the folio nailing and spearing a Heart to the Cross, and symbolising the mortification of vain pleasure.

Immediately below the mantle is the shape of a pennant in the white cope. Joan’s pennant was decorated with two figures, the Virgin Mary and the angel Gabriel, representing the Annunciation.

Joan’s shield is also referenced in the folio. Observe the shield shape in the upper raised arm of the woman dressed in the long blue gown. It’s placed above the shield or banner-shape of the kneeling figure’s mantle and emblazoned with an anchor placed inside or above a boat. The boat or barge represents the Church; the anchor, Hope. However, the emblem also echoes Joan of Arc’s family coat of arms, a sword, circled by a crown placed between two lilies, all on a blue shield.

The anchor is shaped to represent Christ Crucified. However, one of the end points is separated from its arm, perhaps signifying the split within the Catholic Church brought about by the Hussite Wars, and which Joan of Arc opposed. The motif is repeated throughout the blue dress. Jan Van Eyck also referred to the Hussite Wars in the Musical Angels panel of the Ghent Altarpiece.

There are other features in the folio which connect to the altarpiece, also called Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. One is a Lamb depiction in the white hem of the kneeling figure.

The Flemish painter Hugo Van der Goes was said to have been “driven mad and melancholy” attempting to emulate the Ghent Altarpiece. His effort is now housed in the National Museum of Antique Art in Lisbon and is a polyptych known as the Saint Vincent Panels. However, the work is mistakingly attributed to the Portuguese painter Nuno Gonçalves and not Hugo Van der Goes.

One of the frames is titled Panel of the Relic. It depicts a kneeling figure (Cardinal Henry Beaufort) presenting a fragment of a skull placed on a green cloth. The shape of the fragment is a porcupine with a spiked back. This is Hugo’s attempt to echo Jan van Eyck’s reference to the Order of the Porcupine and how he connected it to the head of Henry Beaufort, hence the shape of the relic appearing at first glance to seem like a skull fragment. Van Eyck is also depicted in Hugo’s Panel of the Relic, as are two of the judges at Joan of Arc’s trial, Cardinal Henry Beaufort and Pierre Cauchon.

UPDATE: Wednesday, May 29, 2024

In the facing section to the Just Judges panel in the Ghent Altarpiece – the Pilgrims panel – a young Jan van Eyck (circled) can be seen among the group following the towering figure of St Christopher, the patron saint of travellers. His head is shaped to resemble an acorn, the fruit of the oak, and “van Eyck” translates as “of the Oak”. This feature is meant to mirror the hazelnut reference associated with the head of Henry Beaufort.