This scene is from Rogier van der Weyden’s Seven Sacraments Altarpiece. It portrays Jan van Eyck on his deathbed receiving the Last Rites.
Alongside Jan is his wife Margaret holding a candle, synonymous with lighting the soul’s way from darkness to light.
The two men administering the Sacrament are Rogier van der Weyden in the guise of St Luke, patron saint of artists, and Jean Wauquelin, the French writer and translator of the Chronicles of Hainaut.
Wauquelin is cleansing Van Eyck’s right hand while Van der Weyden applies the sacramental Oil of the Sick (Oleum Infirorum), as if reverencing Jan’s gift as an oil painter.
According to the art historian Craig Harbison, Jan van Eyck was the only 15th century painter to sign his panels and sometimes inscribed them using Greek lettering such as AAE IXH XAN – “AS I CAN” – a pun on his name and a reference to a Greek icon.
St Luke was born a Greek. The gamma cross motif on St Luke’s stole is a reference to his Greek identity. St Luke is recognisable from another Van der Weyden’s painting, St Luke Drawing the Virgin. It is said to be a self-portrait.
Notice the placement of Van Eyck’s left arm, resting on the length of white bedsheet. The arm, from fingertip to elbow, represents a device used for measuring lengths of cloth, known as an Ellwand, from which comes the word elbow.
This detail from Jan van Eyck’s painting of the Madonna of Chancellor Rolin is placed centre of the composition. The figure dressed in red and blue is Jan Van Eyck. Hubert, his brother, may be the other figure peering over the bridge. Jan appears to be holding a walking stick. It may also serve as an ell wand and a comparison measurement to his short legs.
When Jan Van Eyck completed the painting of the Arnolfini Portrait in 1434 he embedded several references to what is now known as the Shroud of Turin, claimed by some to be the cloth which wrapped the body of Jesus.
Two significant blood stains on the body’s forehead can be understood as representing letters from the Greek alphabet – The epsilon (e) and the lambda (l). Merged – first and last, beginning and end – the two letters create the word ‘el’, meaning God.
Note also the form of Van Eyck’s left hand, shaped as the head of a sheep (the Lamb of God) and a pun on the letter Lambda. His right hand, when turned, is shaped to represent the head and wing of a dove, a reference to the Holy Spirit and recognition that Van Eyck’s work was “holy inspired”.
So the length of bedsheet supporting Van Eyck’s left arm can be understood as Van der Weyden pointing to the Turin Shroud references embedded in the Arnolfini Portrait.
The main focus of Van der Weyden’s Seven Sacraments triptych is the Crucifixion scene. It links to the death portrayal of Van Eyck who appears to be staring into the reflective metal bowl that represents the mirror and tabernacle door in his Arnolfini Portrait painting.
A disguised aspect of Jean Wauquelin’s is his role as a “translator”. When Jan van Eyck died in July 1441 his body was buried outside the Church of St Donation in Bruges. However, after almost year underground his remains were “translated” into the church and buried near the baptism font.
Another reference to Wauquelin which also links to Van der Weyden is the act of writing. Wauqulein was a writer. Van der Weyden is portrayed in the role of St Luke whose name is attributed as the writer of the Gospel of Luke. St Luke is also attributed with producing, or “writing”, the first icon of the Virgin Mary, a subject dear to the heart of Jan Van Eyck.
Van der Weyden also painted the miniature in Wauquelin’s Chronicles of Hainaut which shows the writer presenting the finished work to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. Wauquelin shown kneeling before the dying Van Eyck is symbolic of the Jan’s work being completed and the end of his life. A final Act or even Last Writes!
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