Category Archives: Pane of the Relic

Patching up with the past

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The Monsaraz fresco known as The Good and Bad Judge, was discovered in 1958 during renovations to the town’s old court building. There is a consensus that the artwork was likely created in the latter part of the 15th century, although later additions (primarily depicting two coats of arms) and perhaps some restoration work were carried out later.

My understanding is that the fresco was painted at a much earlier date, before 1425 and the year the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck was part of the Burgundian diplomatic miission sent to Portugal to pave the way for the marriage of Philip ll, Duke of Burgundy, to Isabella, the only daughter of King John l.

There are elements of the fresco which afterwards Van Eyck incorporated in the Ghent Altarpiece completed in 1432, notably in the Just Judges panel.

In later years Hugo van der Goes seemingly had sight of and studied the fresco as he too was inspired to include some of its features in the St Vincent Panels in his attempt to emulate the Ghent Altarpiece and pay homage to the Van Eyck brothers.

As a citizen of Ghent, Van der Goes would have been more than familiar with the town’s famous altarpiece, and probably the hidden iconography embedded in its panels. For what other reason would Hugo choose to mirror many references to the iconic work of Jan and Hubert van Eyck in the St Vincent Panels?

Returning to the Monsaraz fresco as a source of inspiration for both Jan van Eyck and Hugo van Der Goes, it’s not difficult to match to sections in the St Vincent Panels. For starters, the three figures on the left side of the fresco’s lower register can be compared to the group of three men wearing white religious habits featured in the Panel of the Friars. Two are wearing black hats and one has a beard.

Detail from the Monsaraz fresco and the St Vincent Panel of the Friar

Van der Goes made some adjustment in his painting with the positioning of two of the friars, moving the notary to the front of the frame and the fairhead friar into the centre of the trio.

Now as to the question which artwork was produced first, the fresco or the St Vincent Panels, there are TWO notable clues in the fresco that provide the answer and which Hugo referenced in his unique way in the Panel of the Friars.

The fresco is damaged in some areas. Paint and its plaster base is missing. In the lower section part of the right arm and hand of the seated judge is lost. Van der Goes referenced the shape of this missing piece as the black hat worn by the kneeling friar and which covers the hands of the friar behind him.

Detail from the Monsaraz fresco and the St Vincent Panel of the Friar

The shape of the damaged arm in the fresco can also be matched to a ‘mirror’ image in the Panel of the Relic – the relic itself – confirming that Van der Goes had prior sight of the damaged fresco before he completed painting the St Vincent panels. Further confirmation is part of the hand protruding from beneath the damaged area. Hugo picked up on this as well and reproduced the fingers feature as extending from the sleeve of the bearded friar.

Another obvious missing section in the fresco is the top right segment of the upper register. The angel blowing the trumpet is almost obliterated, as is the head of the Suffering Christ in Glory as if decapitated from the body. A piece of the Saviour’s hair is all that remains visible. The word ‘hair’ is not only a key to discovering the Suffering Christ connection in the Panel of the Friars, but also to a series of embedded homophones revealing other identities and connections in the frame.

Christ on his throne… Monsaraz fresco…

Van der Goes also referenced this missing feature in the Panel of the Friars. Look closely at the head of the figure first in line on the back row. In this instance his identity is the Roman governor Pontius Pilate who was the judge at the trial of Jesus, the judge who responded to Christ’s claim to have been born to witness to the truth: “Truth, what is that?” before handing Jesus over to be crucified.

Pontius Pilate… his ear… and Lambert van Eyck… St Vincent Panels

Hugo illustrated Christ’s crucifixion within the shape of Pilate’s ear, (a reminder that Pilate had listened to Jesus witness he was the Son of God. But notice that the head of Christ and part of the upper body is missing, hidden under Pilate’s hairline. This is not only a reference to the missing head of Christ in the fresco but also to the phrase found in the Nicene Creed: “He was crucified under Pontius Pilate.” Various references to the Nicene Creed can be found in other sections of the St Vincent Panels. Truth is also reflected in the head of Lambert van Eyck seen in the Panel of the Relic (and a pointer to Van Eyck’s famous mirror in the Arnolfini Portrait). Truth can be understood as the Holy Spirit shaped into Lambert’s hair, and to the first part of his name as Lamb (of God).

So while some may argue that the fresco was painted after and inspired by the St Vincent Panels, it is highly unlikely that whoever painted the fresco deliberately damaged the work to coincide with Hugo’s references to the missing limbs and head. Hugo restored the missing parts of the fresco in new light, as if rediscovering or resurrecting lost relics.

“Then the One sitting on the throne spoke: “Now I am making the whole of creation new,” he said. “Write this, that what I am saying is sure and will come true.” And then he said. “It is already done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End…” (Revelation 21 : 5-6)

Notice the Alpha and Omega symbols below “the One sitting on the throne” in the upper register of the fresco!

• My next post will deal with a section of the fresco that inspired Jan van Eyck to utilise in the Just Judges panel of the Ghent Altarpiece.

The hollow tree

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 heads… and shoulders

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This is the second part of a sequence demonstratrating how Hugo van der Goes ‘translated’ iconography from Leonardo da Vinci’s unfinished painting of Jerome in the Desert (see previous two posts) to the Panel of the Relic, the sixth section of the St Vincent Panels.

The Vatican Museums which houses Leonardo da Vinci’s painting of Jerome dates the unfinished work to c1482, the year that is also put forward for the death of Hugo van der Goes.

Below are details from two versions of the St Jerome painting, before and after its latest restoration. At some time the oil on wood panel was cut into five parts, generally considered to have happened after Leonardo had died in 1519. You can see some of the cut marks on the earlier version that frame Jerome’s head. The latest restoration has also brought back to life the sky backdrop which tapers to a sharp point and which had been overpainted on a previous restoration, probably at the time the cut-down pieces were reassembled.

Apart from representing tassels hanging from a cardinal’s hat, the larger mount and the smaller one next to it equate to the ears of both donkey and hare, attributes associated with the story of St Jerome in the desert.

Both the tapering gap between the rock formation and the vertical cut mark which runs through Jerome’s shoulder are two key components adpated by Hugo van der Goes for linking Leonardo’s Jerome painting to his own version of Jerome in the Panel of the Relic.

There is another scenario to this coupling which refers to an injury sustained by Leonardo which I shall put aisde for posting at another time.

Hugo has converted the tapering sky section to represent the ears of the donkey and the hare. As for the cut mark, was the panel already in pieces when Hugo had sight of the painting? Possibly, because he has shown a saw blade cutting into the shoulder of his version of Jerome, parallel with the representation of the hare. But in this instance the hare now becomes a blade. Here we see Hugo punning on saw (sore) shoulder and shoulder blade!

Another pun made by Hugo is hare to hair. Leonardo was noted for writing fables and humerous anecdotes in his notebooks. One such fable in Notebook XX is about a razor blade:

The razor having one day come forth from the handle which serves as its sheath and having placed himself in the sun, saw the sun reflected in his body, which filled him with great pride. And turning it over in his thoughts he began to say to himself: “And shall I return again to that shop from which I have just come? Certainly not; such splendid beauty shall not, please God, be turned to such base uses. What folly it would be that could lead me to shave the lathered beards of rustic peasants and perform such menial service! Is this body destined for such work? Certainly not. I will hide myself in some retired spot and there pass my life in tranquil repose.” And having thus remained hidden for some months, one day he came out into the air, and issuing from his sheath, saw himself turned to the similitude of a rusty saw while his surface no longer reflected the resplendent sun. With useless repentance he vainly deplored the irreparable mischief saying to himself: “Oh! how far better was it to employ at the barbers my lost edge of such exquisite keenness! Where is that lustrous surface? It has been consumed by this vexatious and unsightly rust.”
The same thing happens to those minds which instead of exercise give themselves up to sloth. They are like the razor here spoken of, and lose the keenness of their edge, while the rust of ignorance spoils their form.

Fables of Leonardo da Vinci (Book, 1973) [WorldCat.org]

I previously identified the “rustic peasant” as Jan van Eyck representing John the Baptist, but there are two more identities asociated with the figure which I shall reveal in one of my next posts in this series.

Hugo’s Jerome figure also represents cardinal Henry Beaufort, one of the richest men in England during his lifetime. The portrait is adapted from Jan van Eyck’s version of Beaufort, and not just because of his razored haircut. Notice in Van Eyck’s Beaufort (not dressed as a cardinal) the gament’s sleeves lined with sheep-wool – and shaped to represent the ears of a donkey – a reference to Beaufort’s Midas touch at turning everything into riches!

Bringing matters to a head

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This post is the first of a sequence demonstratrating how Hugo van der Goes ‘translated’ iconography from Leonardo da Vinci’s unfinished painting of Jerome in the Desert (see previous post) to the Panel of the Relic, the sixth section of the St Vincent Panels.

Hugo utilised Leonardo’s crucifixion sketch to depict the profled head of Christ crucified which is placed facing the pilgrim’s left hand, whose knuckles also echo the head shape Leonardo formed on Jerome’s right shoulder. This similitude links to a passage from Mark’s gospel (15:34) when Jesus was dying on his cross and cried out: “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” (Mark 15 :34). Some in attendance mistakenly thought he was calling out to Elijah. The head shape on the knuckle represents Elijah forsaking Jesus and turning away frorm him.

The Father figure is found in the hair section covering the pilgrim’s temple. This is similar to the crucifixion motif formed by Pilate’s ear and hairline in the Panel of he Friars. The connection is one of several made between the two panels and also links to a major theme that runs through all six sections of the painting – the words of the Nicene Creed.

The galero or cardinal’s hat and tassels are not difficult to pick out. The cardinal’s hat is shaped hanging down at the side of Hugo’s figure of Jerome, while the tassels, depicted as thorn tassels in this instance, are attached to the corners of the green cloth.

• More on this in my next post.

Leonardo in the Wilderness

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In my previous post I revealed that St Jerome is one of the identities given to the figure in the forefront of the Panel of the Relic. Hugo van der Goes links this version to an unfinished painting by Leonardo da Vinci known as St Jerome in the Wilderness, which is housed in the Vatican Museums.

It’s generally accepted that Leonardo’s rendering was produced in 1480, shortly before he was commissioned in March 1481 to paint the Adoration of the Magi. This work also remained unfinished, probably because Leonardo left Florence in 1482 and moved to Milan.

That Hugo van der Goes has referenced Leonardo’s Jerome in specific ways in the Panel of the Relic not only helps date the St Vincent Panels but also calls into question the date that Hugo supposedly died, put at 1482.

There is also a questionable claim that Leonardo’s Jerome was cut down into five pieces after his death in 1519 (and reassembled centuries later). Hugo van der Goes provides evidence that the painting was sectioned during his lifetime. One of the pieces – the head – is also a clue to the identity of the Relic.

For details about St Jerome’s attributes and legends, go to this page.

Several of Jerome’s attributes can be identified in Leonardo’s painting. The brimmed Cardinal’s hat or galero is shaped from the rock at the top of the frame, the pointed mount represents the tassels that hang from the hat. Combined with the smaller mount alongside, the two pointed rock shapes also represent the donkey’s ears and those of the rabbit or hare. The rabbit usually symbolises the sexual temptations of the saint. Like the lion in the forefront, both donkey and hare are lying down. The curved shape in front of the sketch of the church is the back end of the monastery donkey, while the shape of the back of the hare is silhouetted above Jerome’s right arm wih the stone in his hand used to beat his chest with. To the right of the monastery is a profile sketch of a crucifix.

Jerome also claims that he saw himself in a dream being scourged in heaven, and when he awoke he could see the scourge marks on his shoulder. Leonardo portrays this in a rather unusual way. The well-formed deltoid muscle area on Jerome’s right shoulder is shaped to form a human face looking upwards at the galero’s knotted tassels and the sharp-shaped stones doubling up to represent a scourge.

But before I post on some of these details in the Panel of the Relic, it’s worth noting that another artist utilised the St Jerome in the Desert painting to reference an event in the life of Leonardo da Vinci.

The painting by Luca Signorelli is titled Testament and Death of Moses and is one of six frescos completed by various artists depicting the Life of Moses on the South Wall in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.

Seated on a tree stump in the centre section is an almost naked Leonardo da Vinci, surrounded by a group of Florentine society’s hierarchy that includes Lorenzo de’ Medici and two of his sons, Piero and Giovanni. Placed in front of Piero and the man looking down on Leonardo is the Medici banker Francesco Sassetti. Next to Sassetti with his back to the viewer is the painter Luca Signorelli. There is a reason for his prominent placing. Firstly, his name Signorelli is a play on the word Signoria, Florence’s Town Council. Secondly, he depicts himself as a rather flamboyant figure representing Sodomy, a charge which Leonardo was annoymously accused of and brought before the Signoria to answer. The accusation against Lenardo and three other men was later dropped because of lack of evidence and possibly because one of the men, Lorenzo Tornabuoni, had a family connection to the Medici.

The figure can also be identified as Lorenzo Tornabuoni via the family’s coat of arms, a rampant lion, its colours predominately pale blue (or green) and gold. The knotted armband represents the shield and its cross attached to the lion’s shoulder. The golden eagle featured in two corners of the stemma is echoed in the coat of the man standing behind the seated Leonardo, probably Angelo Poliziano, the classical scholar and poet who tutored Lorenzo’s Medici’s children. Luca Signoreli has constructed a separate narrative which relates to the combined figures of Leonardo, Poliziano, Sassetti and Tornabuoini but is not connected to the Jerome painting and therefore best left to present at another time.

The iconography which does connect to Leonardo’s Jerome in the Wilderness is fairly straightforward: The rear view of Tornabuoni represents the rear view of the lion, the red rbbons a humorous take on Jerome’s scourging. The encircling lion’s tail is the sweeping arched veil behind the crouching Leonardo (another ‘lion’). The gaunt appearance of Jerome is mirrored in the face of Francesco Sassetti, and probably a clue as to who commissioned the painting. However, the suffering Leonardo is also reflected in the upward gaze of Jerome, his head resting on a dark background, both in the painting and the shoulder of Sassetti, echoing the face feature depicted in the right shoulder of Jerome. Standing behind Sassetti is Piero, son of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Observe the triangular shape of his right shoulder, mirroring both the pointed mountain in the Jerome painting and the shape of the hanging tassels of the cardinal’s hat mentioned earlier. Sassetti’s gold collar mirrors Jerome’s pronounced collarbone.

Sassetti is also holding the thumb of his right hand – a possible reference to Leonardo’s finger marks evident on the Jerome panel as well as the thumbscrew torture used by investigators to extract information. Another form of torture was the strappado where “the victim’s hands are tied behind their back and suspended by a rope attached to the wrists, typically resulting in dislocated shoulders”, perhaps indicated by the action of the sweeping veil behind Leonardo’s back.

The Moses Testament and Death fresco is said to have been completed in 1482, a couple of years on from the 1480 date attributed to Leonardo’s Jerome in the Desert.

• My next post will deal with how Hugo van der Goes transferred some of the iconography from the St Jerome panel to the Relic sction of the St Vincent Panels.

Pointing the way

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Detail from the Panel of the Relic, St Vincent Panels, Museu Nacional de Arte Antigua.

In October 2020 I posted details here on two of the identiies given to the two men standing on the back row of the Panel of the Relic – Hubert and Lambert van Eyck, brothers of Jan, as representing their name saints.

Both saints served as prelates in their time; Lambert as bishop of Maastricht from about 670 until his death in 705; Hubert as bishop of Liege after the martyrdom of Lambert who had been Hubert’s spiritual director.

Detail from the Palude Diptych showing the murder of St Lambert of Maastricht, Grand Curtius Museum, Liege

Lambert was murdered along wth two of his nephews, Peter and Audolet, after he had denounced the affair of a local clan leader and his mistress.

The uncle and nephews relationship is connected to one of the identities represented by the figure in black in the Panel of the Relic – another bishop, Jean Jouffroy. Hugo van der Goes has taken his lead from a still-visible wall painting in the Holy Cross Chapel of St Cécile, at Albi in France. It depicts Jouffroy with two of his nephews Henry and Hélion, along wth their patron saints. Standing alongside Jean Jouffroy is St Jerome, known for his translation of the bible from Hebrew into Latin.

Fresco in the Holy Cross Chapel of St Cécile, Albi, France

Hugo has employed the Jouffroy/Jerome pairing but switched positions of the two men to pun on the name of Jouffrey to suggest Jew. Hugo creates other links to emphasise the connection of the bishop to Judaisim, notably the pseudo Hebrew text in the book held by Jouffrey. But the main pointer is the claim that a Christian convert from Judaism assisted Jerome in translating the Hebrew text, hence why Jouffroy is shown as the figure supporting the kneeling Jerome and the suggestion of a cardinal’s hat on the saint’s back.

But don’t be misled by the five-pointed star on the bishop’s coat. Some researchers claim it represents the red star that Jews were forced to wear by Portuguese rulers. But that was a yellow star and not red. The star represents the Order of Our Lady of Bethlehem founded to commemorate the star that the Magi followed to Bethlehem. Another Order of the same name was founded by Pope Pius II two centuries later in 1459 and it was the second order that Jouffroy belonged to. He was made cardinal by Pius II in 1461.

So now we have another identity associated with the kneeling figure – St Jerome – to add to Cardinal Henry Beaufort, the French king Charles VI, and the artist Hans Membling. Apart from the skull fragment and a cardinal’s hat, there are other attributes associated with Jerome, notably a lion, a donkey, sometimes a rabbit or hare, and a crucifix. These are not so obvious as the skull relic and the cardinal’s galero but they are there to be discovered and introduce another artist – Leonardo da Vinci.

• More on this in my next post.

Panel of the Relic… more links

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The above detail depicting John the Baptist is from the left wing of the Donne Triptych painted by Hans Membling and housed at the National Gallery in London. Model for the Baptist figure is Rogier van der Weyden. In the background is another Flemish painter, Dieric Bouts.

This pairing is repeated in the Panel of the Knights, the fifth section of the St Vincent Panels as shown here. Hugo van der Goes has featured several artists and made references to their paintings in the St Vincent Panels, usually placing them on the back row.

However, Hans Membling is given a more prominent position. He is one of the identities applied to the kneeling figure in the Panel of the Relic and is shown well advanced in age compared with the some of the other paintings in which he appears as a young man, sometimes in the role of the youngest apostle John the Evangelist.

Membling portrays himself as John in the right wing of the Donne Triptych, holding the poisoned chalice he was invited to drink from by a pagan priest. Hugo has also made a connection to the chalice and the skull fragment held by the ageing Henry Beaufort whose likeness is based on the painting of the Cardinal by Jan van Eyck.

Here Hugo has attempted to morph the two men into one likeness, just as Van Eyck did with himself and the figure of Philip the Good in the Arnolfini Portrait, and so we have another indication for Hugo attempting to emulate the work of Van Eyck.

But there is more to this connection. Beaufort had amassed a great fortune in his life-time and was considered to be one of the wealthiest men in England, so rich that kings and emperors came to him for loans to finance their military and war efforts.

According to the art historian Til-Holger Borchert, so successful was Hans Membling during his painting career and at making investments (he owned several houses) that he was listed among the richest citizens in Bruge, and so an obligatory subscriber to the loan raised by Maximillian I of Austria to finance hostilities towards France in 1480.

Was Hugo van der Goes making a judgement on the success of Membling, or was the reference to the descent into Hell featured in the red-robed figure (as explained in a previous post) a pointer to one of Memling’s most famous and dramatic paintings, The Last Judgment triptych, now housed at the National Museum in Gdańsk, Poland?

Close inspection of the St John figure and the poisoned chalice shows a fold in the red gown shaped to represent a demonic figure with its nose pointing to the rim of the cup.

A similar motif with a sharp nose can be seen “attacking” the skull fragment in the Panel of the Relic.

The chalice and the skull fragment connect to another narrative disguised in the St Vincent Panels, but more on this at another time.

Hugo also combines two elements from Membling’s two triptychs into one of his own – the towers which appear in the left wing of The Last Judgment and the right wing of The Donne Tryptich – to form the wooden upright box in the Panel of the Relic.

Finally, the inspiration for the coupling of Rogier van der Weyden and Dieric Bouts in the Panel of the Knights can also be found in The Last Supper painting by Dieric Bouts painted in the 1460’s and probably around the same time as Membling produced The Last Judgment.

The two portraits shown in the serving hatch of The Last Supper painting are Dieric Bouts and Hans Membling. Another ‘servant’ depicted in the painting is Rogier van der Weyden who died during the time Bouts was painting The Last Supper, and so another possible reason for Van der Goes to link Bouts and Van der Weyden in the St Vincent Panels. Bouts died in 1475.

More revelations on the Panel of the Relic in a future post.

Making straight highways…

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Detail from the Knights of Christ panel of the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan and Hubert van Eyck.

Last May, I posted an item titled “A case of déjà vu” which explained some of the iconography in the Panel of the Relic, the sixth section in a set known as the St Vincent Panels painted by Hugo van der Goes.

I pointed out the figure in black represented bishop Jean Jouffroy (among others) and the open book of Scripture referred to a passage from Isaiah (40:3-5), echoed in John’s gospel (1:23) by John the Baptist:

A voice cries, “Prepare in the wilderness a way for Yaweh. Make a straight highway for our God across the desert. Let every valley be filled in, every mountain and hill laid low, let every cliff become a plain, and the ridges a valley; then the glory of Yaweh will be revealed and all mankind shall see it; for the mouth of Yaweh has spoken.”

Close inspection of the book’s pages reveals the straight highways between columns and verses, and the ridges and valleys on the turning pages.

More recently I discovered that the inspiration for this symbolism was based on iconography Jan van Eyck used in the Knights of Christ panel that forms part of the Ghent Altarpiece. Van Eyck makes reference to the same passage but in a different way. Instead, it is the two curved shields which represent the curved pages – the mountains and hills. The straight highway – the straight lines and verse segments on the opposite page – is represented by the straight lines depicted as the cross of St George on the leading rider’s shield. Van Eyck also confirmed the passage with another representation – the three vertical flag poles and furled banners.

Revealing the Relic

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It has never been established which saint or martyr the skull fragment depicted in the so-called Panel of the Relic belongs to. Is it St VIncent of Zaragossa or, as some historians have suggested, Ferdinand, known as the Holy Prince or the Saint Prince (but never canonised), who died as a captive in a Moroccan prison?

Hugo van der Goes, the Flemish artist who painted the St Vincent panels, provided visible clues that point to another saint, possibly even two, which as far as I know have never been considered before by historians.

While the focus of the Altarpiece is on St Vincent, he is not the only saint or martyr represented in the panels. There are many. In fact, Van der Goes has made “uncovering saints” one of the main themes in the painting. This stems from a connection with the first in the lineup of many figures representing a saint – in this instance St Ambrose of Milan, depicted in the top left corner of the Friars Panel. More on this connection at another time.

So it should not be assumed that the so-called ‘twin’ figures said to be of St Vincent simply represent that particular saint alone. We are invited to “uncover the saints and martyrs” represented in all of the six panels, as well as other idenities associated with the St Vincent figures.

Van der Goes links each clue to another, as a method of confirming identities and connections. He was influenced in this type of construction by Jan van Eyck who employed the same technique in the Ghent Altarpiece, particularly in the Just Judges panel where the ten riders interlock as jigsaw pieces.

Let’s explore how Van der Goes leads the viewer to discovering the saint associated with the skull fragment. The artist was well versed in producing heraldic decorations for the Burgundian court and the city of Ghent. In 1468 he was commissioned to do so for the marriage of Charles the Bold to Margareta of York and other works for important occasions.

Aspects of Hugo’s knowledge and experience of heraldic disciplines and terminology feature in the St Vincent Panels. One particular term Hugo has utilised from the language of heraldry is ‘erasure’ which, according to The Oxford Guide to Heraldry, is the tearing off a part of a charge, to leave a jagged edge, and mostly applied to heads depicted with a ragged edge as if forcibly torn from the body.

In another post I pointed out that one of the works of art which Hugo borrowed features from to include in the St Vincent Panels was the Monsaraz fresco known as the Good and Bad Judge, most notably the damaged or ‘erased’ section that formed part of the Good Judge’s right arm and hand. This ‘erased’ or ‘hidden’ motif is utilised in all of the St Vincent Panels in a variety of ways – for instance: men with arms, men without arms, in a literal and military sense. Very few of the figures standing in the back row of the panels are depicted with arms or hands, and if they are, then there is usually a significant meaning to why this is so.

The Panel of the Relic is a typical example. Only the figure of Jan van Eyck doubling up as John the Baptist shows both arms and hands, and even his arms are partly cut off or covered. His two brothers on the back row, Hubert and Lambert, both named after saints, are also armless. The figure of the French prelate and diplomat Jean Jouffroy, twinned with Pierre Cauchon, another French bishop and also a prosecutor in the trial of Joan of Arc, is depicted with the right arm on show and hand on a holy book. Jouffroy later attacked Joan’s ‘saintly’ reputation in a eulogy given in 1459 to Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, which may explain the symbolism of the hidden arm and underhand motif.

As to any visual reference to St Joan of Arc – yet another French connection – it is found in the patterned surplice worn by Hubert. Notice the stake-shaped arch in the centre and what appear to be rising flames, a reminder of how Joan suffered martyrdom by being burnt at the stake. The flames can also be understood as symbolic of the Holy Spirit.

The kneeling figure in the bright red gown depicts the French king Charles VI, referred to as ‘Charles the Mad’, who was plagued throughout his life with bouts of mental illness. The figure is also representative of Cardinal Henry Beaufort, said to have had a a hidden hand in the prosecution of Joan of Arc, although the absent left hand seemingly supporting the skull fragment also has a connection to the relic itself. Both Beaufort and Charles VI are also presented in Jan van Eyck’s Just Judges panel in the Ghent altarpiece.

As to the skull fragment itself, close inspection shows a ragged edge on its top side. This makes the connection to the heraldic term ‘erasure’ and a reason why Charles VI is holding the relic.

With its spiked back, the ‘torn’ fragment is meant to depict a porcupine and links to the French king’s younger brother, Louis I Duke of Orleans, who was assassinated on November 23, 1407, on the orders of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy. He was lured to his death on a Paris street in broad daylight after being told his brother wished to meet with him. When he mounted his horse to start on his way a gang of fifteen masked men attacked and fatally stabbed him, cutting off one of his hands in the process, hence the image of his brother Charles depicted with one hand only.

As to the porpupine motif, this represents the chivalric Order of the Porcupine founded by Louis in 1394 to mark the occasion of the baptism of his son Charles of Orleans who was later held captive by the English as a prisoner of war for 25 years.

The Order’s insignia was represented by a gold porcupine standing on a green enamelled oval-shaped base, hence the green cloth base behind the skull fragment. The Order was sometimes referred to in France as the Ordre du Camail and here Hugo van der Goes makes another link to confirm his intended reference to the insignia. Depicted just above the king’s right shoulder is the coat of camel hair worn by John the Baptist. The word-play, camel and camail, is confirmed by the folds in the Baptist’s coat shaped to represent the legs of a camel.

But there is more to link to the Order of the Porcupine. Louis, duke of Orleans, did not enjoy the best of reputations with the people. He had many enemies and is said to have taken his brother’s wife as a mistress. It was also claimed that he dabbled in magic and the black arts, even necromancy. So when we look at the fuller figure in red, there are other clues that point to Louis, duke of Orleans. Saint he wasn’t, it seems.

To the right and slightly above the green cloth is the shape of demonic face with a sharp-pointed nose. It also has an open, laughing mouth with two teeth. The demonic face represents John the Fearless, noted for his long sharp nose, piercing the cameo, and the stabbing of Louis. This motif is also adapted by Hugo from the Monsaraz fresco, shown below.

But take a look at the green cloth to its full extent and we see portrayed another demonic feature, screaming on its way into the fires of hell. The folds in the red garment are angled and accentuated in a descending formation.

Some twelve years later John the Fearless was assassinated in similar fashion on the bridge at Montereau when an attempt to parley with the French dauphin and future Charles VII of France went amiss. One of the dauphin’s escorts panicked and attacked the duke of Burgundy with an axe to his face. The shape of the axe head can be made out in the demonic face of John the Fearless, cleaving his skull through to the socket of his eye.

So where is the saint feature in all of this? Van der Goes is pointing the way back to another Louis and another king, the only French king canonised by the Cathoic Church, Louis IX.

It was Louis who built a dedicated chapel, the Sainte-Chapelle, as a shrine to house the many relics associated with the life of Christ presented to him by Emperor Baldwin II of Constantinople. These included the Crown of Thorns and a fragment fo the True Cross, so the skull fragment held by king Charles VI can also be understood as a relic of St Louis and the porcupine’s thorns as the Crown of Thorns placed on the head of Christ during his Passion.

In all of this there is another connection to Jan van Eyck and a folio attributed to him in the Turin-Milan Hours depicting the Birth of John the Baptist. The minature refers to many of the items Louis IX received from Baldwin II and were kept in the Sainte-Chapelle. More recently, the Crown of Thorns was rescued from its sanctuary when the Paris cathedral of Notre Dame caught fire in April 2019.

The Order of the Porcupine is not the only chivalric company represented in the St Vincent panels. There are several, and at least three others in the Panel of the Relic.

• More on this and other connections to be discovered in the Panel of the Relic in my next post.

More on the Panel of the Friars

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In my previous post I stated that a section of Botticelli’s Uffizi version of the Adoration of the Magi partly inspired Hugo van der Goes’ composition for the Panel of the Friars in the St Vincent polyptych.

For example, the figure in the top left corner and the figure of the friar beneath it are based on two-heads in the Botticelli painting that depict Bernardo Bandini Baronelli, one of the assassins in the Pazzi Conspiracy who cleaved the head of Giulianio de’ Medici, and the Italian poet and scholar Angelo Ambrogini, better known as Poliziano, who later wrote a commentary about the dramatic event. He is seen with his head turned looking directly at the viewer in a similar fashion to the friar in the Panel of the Friars.

Detail from Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi, and the Panel of the Friars (St Vincent Panels).

The friar with the full head of wavy hair has multiple identities, one being João Álvares, a Portuguese chronicler held captive for several years alongside the royal prince Ferdinand who died in captivity at Fez. Five years after Ferdinand’s death, Álvares was succesfully ransomed, returned to Portugal and then commissioned by Ferdinand’s brother Henry (the Navigator) to chronicle his younger sibling’s life and deeds. This account was a source Hugo likely utilised for producing one of the themes in the St Vincent Panels, just as Botticelli used Poliziano’s account as a basis for his painting.

Leonardo da Vinci’s sketch of Bernardo Bandini Baroncelli, hanged for the asassination of Giuliano de Medici.

There are two references in Botticelli’s painting to Bernardo Bandini – eventually captured in Constantinople after his flight from Florence and brought back in chains by Antonio de Medici. He was hanged on December 29, 1479. Present at the time of Bandini’s execution was Leonardo da VInci who made a drawing of the hanged man. Part of this drawing is represented by the head of Bandini tucked behind Poliziano. This is to make clear that the account of Baldini’s execution was not part of Poiliziano’s report written soon after the attack on the Medici brothers. But Leonardo was still in town and recorded the event in one of his notebooks. Observe the reference to the rope, an emphasised vertical line which forms part of the column in the background.

So how does this hanging man image connect to Pontius Pilate. There is a visual likeness – the red skull cap – and so a pointer to Golgotha, the ‘place of the skull’ where Jesus was crucified or hung from a tree. The bark on the lower part of the tree behind the head of Bandini has been stripped, as Christ was stripped of his clothes, and above this area are the dangling legs of a man depicting the Crucifixion. Hugo van der Goes has matched this by depicting Pilate’s right ear as the lower half of Christ crucified.

There is another component that links to Baldini, the line that joins the two halves of Pilate’s tunic and falls in behind the head of Àlveres. This echoes the line that represents the rope seen behind the head of the assassin in the Botticeli painting. It’s a device applied by Hugo van der Goes to introduce another identity given to the friar and which, in turn, will eventualy lead back again to Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi. The new identity appears in one of the cycle of frescoes known as the Legend of the True Cross, attributed to Piero della Francesca, and located in the San Francesco church in Arezzo, Italy.

The Torture of Judas the Jew, part of the the fresco cycle known as the Legend of the True Cross, attributed to Piero della Francesco and Giovanni da Piamonte. Church of San Francesco, Arezzo.

The particular fresco, attributed to Piero’s assistant Giovanni da Piamonte, is the sixth in a series of thirteen and referred to as The Torture of Judas the Jew. Judas is seen lowered into a well with a rope tied around his waist, although at first glance it appears the rope is attached to his neck. This was done in an effort make Judas reveal the location of the Cross on which Jesus was crucified. After seven days of torture Judas relented and revealed the location in Jerusalem where the True Cross was buried.

Judas’ curled hair is similar in style to the curls applied to Álvarez. To make any further connections between the two men, we now have to focus on one of the identities given to the second figure in the back row, Thomas Aquinas, and his portrait painted by Sandro Botticelli which I pointed out in a previous post.

St Thomas Aquinas, Botticelli, c1481-82, Riggisberg.

After Aquinas had died on March 7, 1274, an Enquiry into Canonisation was held at Naples between July and September 1319. One of the witnesses, an elderly priest known as Peter of Montesangiovanni, was asked if he knew of any miracles worked by Thomas in life or after death.

He replied that during his stay at Maenza, Thomas’s health declined and his socius (comrade), seeing his weakness, begged him to take some food: whereupon Thomas said, “Do you think you could get some fresh herrings?” The socius repied, “Oh, yes, across the Alps, in France or in England!” But just then a fishmonger called Bordonario arrived at the castle from Terracina with his usual delivery of sardines; and the socius (Reginald of Priverno) asked him what fish he had and was told (sardines). But on opening the baskets, the man found one full of fresh herrings. Everyone was delighted, but astonished too, because fresh herrings were unknown in Italy. And while the fishmonger was swearing that he had brought sardines, not herrings, brother Reginald ran off to tell Thomas, crying, “God has given you what you wanted – herrings!” And Thomas said, “Where have they come from and who brought them?” And Reginald said, “God has brought them!”

This incident later became known as the “Miracle of the Sardines”. Close inspection of Botticelli’s painting of Thomas Aquinas shows the cuffs of the saint’s tunic and his collar depicted as herrings. The hood of the Cistercian friar below is also meant to match the herring form.

Detail fro the Panel of Friars, St Vincent Panels, National Museum of Antique Art, Lisbon.

As for any reference to sardines, look no further than the shape and cut of the friar’s head of seemingly presented on a plate, and lso a reference to John the Baptist whose head was presented on a plate to Salome. This alludes to the mirror Panel of the Relic where the kneeling cardinal is shown presenting part of a skull shaped as a dish.

Detail from the Panel of the Relic (St Vincent Panels), National Museum of Antique Art, Lisbon.

Another connection Hugo van der Goes makes is to Botticeli’s Uffizi version of the Adoration of the Magi. Botticelli is depicted standing on the extreme right edge of the panel with his hands covered. To his right stands the bearded Hugo van der Goes. This combination of the two artists is matched in the Panel of the Friars to the bearded friar and the friar crowned with sardines, the latter being another identity given to the figure – Botticelli – a nickname meaning “Little Barrel”. Hugo has playfully returned the jibe directed at him in Sandro’s painting, which inferred he worked at a snail’s pace. Hugo has presented Botticeli as a “little barrel” of sardines.

• More about the Panel of the Friars and its connections in my next post.

Hugo’s hat-tip to Jan van Eyck

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In my previous post I pointed out that Rogier van der Weyden’s ‘Joseph’ portrait was adapted from Jan van Eyck’s self-portrait – Man in a Red Turban.

Another Netherlandish artist went a step further and amalgamated features from both portraits to create his own version of Jan van Eyck and feature him as a pilgrim in the St Vincent Panels. Although the panels are currently attributed to the Portuguese painter Nuno Gonçalves, they also reveal iconographic evidence that Hugo van der Goes had a major role in the work.

In his portrait of Van Eyck as a pilgrim seen in the Panel of the Relic, Hugo has mirrored Van der Weyden’s ‘Joseph’. The hats are similar, so are the facial features. The muzzle of the ‘Lamb of God’ feature is outlined in the pilgrim’s hat.

A subtle ‘God the Father’ feature is applied to Jan’s temple, to mirror the Christ image which is seen on the temple of the man wearing the red turban. Just below the ‘Father’ feature is the suggestion of ‘Christ Crucified’, another detail which appears on the red turban in Jan’s self-portrait.

Hugo has also echoed the vacant aedicula in Rogier’s painting by placing an empty coffin behind Jan the pilgrim.

A case of déjà vu

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This section of the St Vincent Panels is known as the Panel of the Relic, so called because of the kneeling prelate holding the fragment of a skull. Some say the relic belongs to St Vincent of Zaragoza, the saint who is the focus of the two panels in the centre of the altarpiece, while others suggest it belongs to Ferdinand the Holy Prince, the youngest son of John l of Portugal who was taken as a hostage following the Siege of Tangier and eventually died in captivity.

The panels are attributed to the Portuguese painter Nuno Gonçalves and one of the main narratives is the translation to Lisbon of the relics belonging to St Vincent and Ferdinand. But what makes the Panel of the Relic notably different from the rest is that there are no Portuguese representatives. The kneeling prelate is English whose father was Flemish, and the four other men represent the House of Valois-Burgundy. So why should any of them be associated with a relic of St Vincent or Ferdinand the Holy Prince?

If the relic belonged to neither of these two saintly men then what relic could link the Portuguese House of Aviz with Cardinal Henry Beaufort, son of John of Gaunt, and the rest of the group of Flemings? The clue lies is in ‘translating’ the open pages of the book held by the prelate dressed in black. He is Jean Jouffroy, one time almoner of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. The two men standing in the back row are assistants to Jouffroy, but unnamed. The figure portrayed as a humble pilgrim is Jan van Eyck.

Gonçlaves has sourced two of Van Eyck’s paintings and the work of another Flemish painter, Rogier van der Weyden, to build on the ‘translate’ narrative found in the altarpiece. Van der Weyden is portrayed as one of four artists featured in the Panel of the Knights.

The two works of Van Eyck are the Knights of Christ panel in the Ghent Altarpiece, and the portrait of Henry Beaufort, currently mistitled, Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati. The Van der Weyden paintings are: The Seven Sacraments, the Altarpiece of the Virgin and Child with Saints (now fragmented with some parts lost) and the Exhumation of St Hubert.

By using some of the iconography created by other artists in their paintings and translating it to a new location, Gonçlaves is, in a sense, paying homage to the particular artist and their work. This echoes the foremost theme of the St Vincent panels – paying homage and celebrating the translation of St Vincent’s lost relics to Lisbon, and so establishing a new creation and a spiritual rebirth for the city, commemorated annually.

The translation of Jan van Eyck

There is a reference by the art historian James Weale in his book on the life and works of Hubert and John van Eyck, that in March 1442, at the request of Lambert van Eyck, the Chapter of St Donatian, Bruges, “grants permission for the body of his brother John, buried in the precincts, to be, with the bishop’s licence, translated into the church and buried near the font, on condition of the foundation of an anniversary and of compliance with the rights of fabric.”
 
In his Seven Sacraments painting, Van der Weyden depicts this translation of Van Eyck’s remains as the raised stone covering the grave and supporting the baptismal font. Hence the ‘raised’ coffin also signifying the upright baptismal font. The child in the baptism scene is Van Eyck’s own, and the Sacrament signifies being raised to new life in Christ. And so in death Van Eyck is resurrected to new life through the Sacrament. Close inspection of the priest performing the baptism reveals the same priest that stands next to the coffin Van Eyck is placed in front of in the Panel of the Relic.

But there is another reason why Jan is portrayed standing in front of the coffin, and it connects to another painting by Rogier van der Weyden. It’s part of the cut-down altarpiece referred to as the Virgin and Child with Saints. The figure of Joseph is represented by Jan van Eyck, frail and seemingly approaching the end of life. The head and upper part of his body is now a portrait presentation housed at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon.

The building in the background shows an empty tabernacle or aedicula. The pedestal and canopy are there but the statue is missing. This may be seen as Van der Weyden preparing to elevate his humble friend Jan to kingly or even saintly status. “King of Painters” was an epithet awarded to Jan.

So the empty coffin is also symbolic of the empty tabernacle. However the surplice worn by the priest alongside the coffin also depicts a tabernacle, but not vacant. It contains the presence of the Holy spirit, symbolised by the flames shown within the veil.

The Holy Flame is reflected in the Panel of the Friars, under the figure with the long beard. The figure also has his right hand placed on what is said to be the lid of the coffin behind Van Eyck. But the plank has other meanings as well.

The figure of Jean Jouffroy, who later became an influential ‘Prince of the Church’ – a Cardinal – is shown holding open a book of Scripture. The text is unreadable (although it has been claimed that some Hebrew words can be identified) but its message can be understood when read as a piece of iconography. It relates to the passage from Isaiah (40:3-5), echoed in John’s gospel (1-23) by John the Baptist:

A voice cries, “Prepare in the wilderness a way for Yaweh. Make a straight highway for our God across the desert. Let every valley be filled in, every mountain and hill laid low, let every cliff become a plain, and the ridges a valley; then the glory of Yaweh will be revealed and all mankind shall see it; for the mouth of Yaweh has spoken.”

Close inspection of the book’s pages reveals the straight highways between columns and verses, and the ridges and valleys on the turning pages. The wise men who came from the East to pay homage to the new-born King had to travel across the desert, and were led straight to Bethlehem by following a star. That’s the red star seen on the front of Jouffroy. It also represents a military order of that time known as the Order of Our Lady of Bethlehem.

A second connection to John the Baptist is the Jan van Eyck figure dressed in a camelskin coat. The hind legs of the camel are shaped in the folds below his belt. His coat is opened at the front and beneath the belt is a suggestion of a head in profile. The profile is facing the head of Henry Beaufort, and in his hands he holds part of the skull of John the Baptist. How the relic came into the possession of Van Eyck and eventually Beaufort is another story, but for the artist to link this feature to a painting that is primarily about St Vincent and the Portuguese House of Aviz is a pointer to where the skull relic was translated from to arrive in England.

The connection also links to what is known as the Templecombe Head, a painting on wooden boards of a head discovered in 1945 in the roof of an outhouse in Templecombe. The painting is of the beheaded John the Baptist.

• More on the Panel of the Relic in a future post.