The two end frames of the St Vincent Panels – the Friars Panel (left) and the Relic Panel (right) are similar in composition. Their “end of the line” positioning is a pointer by the artist, be it Nuno Gonçalves or Hugo van der Goes, to another painting known as the Merode Altarpiece and attributed to Robert Campin. Art historians generally agree that its two end panels were painted at a later date, and possibly by a young Rogier van der Weyden.
The Merode Altarpiece, Robert Campin, The Met Cloisters, New York City
In the two St Vincent Panels the bearded friar represents Robert Campin, while the pilgrim or hermit figure is portrayed as Jan van Eyck, aka Joseph, husband of the Virgin Mary, (a carpenter’s saw hangs from his belt), as explained in a previous post.
In the Merode Altarpiece the so-called ‘messenger’ in the left panel, standing beside the garden door has never been identified, but I would suggest that he represents Robert Campin, the same bearded ‘messenger’ patting the wooden plank in the Friars Panel.
The other end panel in the Merode Altarpiece sees a busy St Joseph in his workshop drilling or ‘tapping’ holes into a plank of wood – a pointer to the holes seen in the plank alongside the beared friar (Campin).
Another Campin connection seen in the Relic Panel is the figure dressed in black supporting the holy book. He is the French prelate Jean Jouffroy. The likeness is based on a portrait by Robert Campin titled Portrait of a Stout Man, now housed at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.
• More on this in my next post which will identify the two men placed on the back row of the Relic Panel.
This Portrait of a Carthusian Monk was painted by Petrus Christus in 1446 and is housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
It was this painting, along with another work by Petrus, that was the inspiration for the bearded Carthusian figure in the Panel of the Friars, the first of six frames that make up the St Vincent Panels.
The long-bearded monk is holding an upright plank of wood – upright as in the sense of righteous (a righteous or just judge). This contrasts to the first figure on the back row, Pontius Pilate, who sentenced Jesus Christ to death by crucifixion after telling the Jews he could find no fault in the man.
It’s not just the beard and white robe that Gonçlaves adopted from the Carthusian painting. The orange, fiery background is echoed in the fiery cross on the monk’s black hat, while the box edge that runs top and right of the frame is represented by the box standing behind Jan van Eyck in the Panel of the Relic.
The plank of wood as representative of the Cross is forefront in another painting by Petrus Christus, A Goldsmith in his Shop, and forms the counter on which various items are displayed. This, too, was incorporated by Nuno Gonçalves into the Panel of the Friars.
A Goldsmith in his Shop, by Petrus Christus. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Researcher Clemente Baeta has identified eleven holes in the plank featured in the Panel of the Friars. The eleven holes match the number of round items grouped on the shop counter, excluding the red ribbon and the mirror. In the Petrus painting they represent the positions of the English forces when it laid seige to Orleans in 1428. The seige was relieved the following year when French forces led by Joan of Arc attacked and overpowered the English positions.
Gonçalves has linked this to reference the siege and conquest of Ceuta by Portugal in 1415 and its successful defence when Moroccan forces counter-attacked in 1419.
Notice also how the right hand of both St Eligius and the monk rest on the panel of wood.
There is another detail in the St Vincent Panels that links to a third painting by Petrus Christus. More about this in a future post.
The St Vincent Panels attributed to the Portuguese painter Nuno Gonçalves.
Several Flemish painters are shown in the St Vincent Panels. The long-bearded monk is meant to represent Roger Campin. Hugo van der Goes shows up in the Panel of the Prince, as does Petrus Christus (see below). Jan van Eyck is the pilgrim featured in the Panel of the Relic, while Dieric Bouts, Rogier van der Weyden and Jaques Daret line up in the Panel of the Knights.
Left: Petrus Christus as portrayed in the St Vincent Panels and (right), probably twenty years earlier, as St Eligius in A Goldsmith in his Shop.
Some months ago I discovered that Jan van Eyck had embedded in the Ghent Altarpiece the identity of the Pearl Poet, author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Jan wasn’t the first artist to do so. Pol Limbourg included him as one of the figures in the January folio from the book of hours known as the Très Riche Heures du Duc de Berry.
Detail from the Panel of the Friars and the Panel of the Relic in the St Vincent Panels
Recently I came across another painting that features the Pearl Poet – the St Vincent Panels attributed to the Portuguese artist Nuno Gonçalves.
In all of the three paintings the iconography attached to the figure of the Pearl Poet confirm his identity as Hugh Stafford, 2nd earl of Stafford, KG, c1342 – October 13, 1386.
The St Vincent Panels was an attempt to emulate the lower register of the Ghent Altarpiece, It includes several references to the work of the Van Eyck brothers and even a portrat of Jan in one of the panels, as there are of other Netherlandish artists.
The Pearl Poet appears in the first frame titled the Panel of the Friars. He is the figure with long hair and a straggling beard. His right hand is placed on a plank of wood. He wears a similar habit to the other two friars but a darker shade. On his head is a fez-type hat marked on the front with a cross amid what appear to be flames of fire.
Like Van Eyck in the Ghent Altarpiece, the artist has applied more than one identity to each figure – in this instance, three. The iconography that points to the name of the Pearl Poet is less detailed than that created by Van Eyck but, like Jan, the artist has split the name into three syllables: Hugh-Staf-ford.
Why the darker shade of the man’s habit? For this, read HUE. The staff is the STAVE or plank of wood he his holding. The FORD is the crossover he is about to make to the water reference in the panel alongside and also the mirror panel on the far side, referred to as the Panel of the Relic. In this scenario the plank is seen as the lid of the coffin placed behind the figure of Jan van Eyck who is presented as a poor pilgrim.
Sir Hugh died at Rhodes while returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. His bones were translated back to England by his squire and entombed at Stone Priory alongside his wife Philippa Beauchamp who had died a few months earlier.
Van Eyck also pointed to Sir Hugh by referencing text from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. So has Gonçlaves, and from the same passage: “Face fell as the fire, and free of his speech.” The fire reference is the symbolic flames at the end of his beard – a kind of singeing of the beard which also refers to another narrative in the painting.
The second identity given to the figure is the artist Robert Campin, considered the first great master of Flemish painting. He is one of several Flemish artists featured in the St Vincent Panels.He can be identified in three ways.
Firstly, In other Flemish paintings he is generally portrayed with a beard and as the third king or wise man that followed a star to Bethlehem to pay homage to Jesus, the new-born king of the Jews, hence the celestial motif on his hat.
Jean Jouffroy, painted by Roger Campin and (right) as he appears in the St Vincent Panels.
The second connection to Campin is the ‘mirror’ image in the far-right frame – the Panel of the Relic. The man wearing the black habit is Jean Jouffroy, almoner to Philip the Good duke of Burgundy. The image is adapated from Roger Campin’s painting, Portrait of a Stout Man. The motif on the front of the habit represents the Order of Our Lady of Bethlehem.
Detail from the Merode Altarpiece showing a self portrait of Roger Campin. Could the horse-rider be Jan van Eyck?
A third connection to Campin is his placement alongside the plank. In this scenario it represents a door to to a sanctuary and is borrowed from a feature in Campin’s painting of the Merode Altarpiece where he has portrayed himself standing next to an open door that leads into a garden and the scene of the Annunciation.
I shall reveal the figure’s third identity in a future post.
Detail from the Pilgrims panel of the Ghent Altarpiece
Gawain gazed on the gallant that goodly him greet, and thought him a brave baron that the burg owned, a huge man in truth, and mature in his years; broad, bright was his beard and all beaver-hued, stern, striding strongly on stalwart shanks, face fell as the fire, and free of his speech; and well he seemed to suit, as the knight thought, the leading a lordship, along of lords full good.
The Gawain Poet, author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and three other poems: Pearl, Patience and Cleanness, had been in his tomb about 45 years before his ghostly presence showed up in the Ghent Altarpiece painted by Jan and Hubert van Eyck. Neither brother had ever set eyes on the mysterious poet, but Jan was certainly acquainted with his work and his name, as he was with the names and poems of the two other contemporary poets referred to in the altarpiece.
Detail from the Pilgrims panel of the Ghent Altarpiece
Whlle researchers have never conclusively agreed on the identity of the Gawain Poet, Jan van Eyck has threaded cryptic clues in the altarpiece which keep pointing to one name in particular. Follow the trail and it keeps leading back to the start – an endless knot, so to speak.
In the Just Judges panel each of the ten riders has four identities. This also happens with some of the other figures in the narrow panels of the lower register. For example, the St Christopher figure (above) in the red cloak is draped with three more identities, one of whom is the so-called Pearl Poet. The other two are Constantine the Great and the artist Robert Campin, considered the first ‘great’ master of Flemish and early Netherlandish painting.
The Pearl Poet also shows up in two other panels of the Ghent Altarpiece but in different guises, and there are references to his work in all of the panels on the lower register when opened and in the closed section of the altarpiece.
The Pearl or Gawain Poet was indeed a man from the West Midlands, UK – HUGH STAFFORD, 2nd earl of Stafford, KG, c 1342 – October 13, 1386
My next post will start to illustrate some of the iconography in the Ghent Altarpiece that identifies with the Pearl Poet and Van Eyck revealing him as Hugh Stafford.
A priest was once heard to say to a group of pilgrims: “There’s a bit of the dog in all of us”. He was referring to the times when people break out from their ordered and obedient nature.
There is sense of disorder in the Pilgrims panel of the Ghent Altarpiece – a giant of a man leading a group of rough but seemingly ready-to-follow pilgrims, all men with the exception of the woman at the back of the group identified in the previous post as the Wife of Bath and one of the travellers featured in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
Could it be that Jan van Eyck is hinting at “long and tall tales”, or even “shaggy dog” stories told by ‘shaggy’ pilgrims? The clue comes through the leader of the group, St Christopher. His collared hair and flowing beard has a hairy-dog appearance. Van Eyck has even given the saint’s nose a shine. Closer inspection of others in the pack with their squinting eyes suggests they too have a-bit-of-the-dog about them.
An Orthodox Christopher portrayed as a dog-headed saint.
The explanation is that in Eastern Orthodox iconography St Christopher is represented with the head of a dog. Apparently it came about from a mistranslation of the latin word Cananeus which means Canaanite (Cana in Galilee is where Christopher, who was originally named Reprobus, is said to have come from). Along the way Cananeus became misinterpreted as Canineus (canine). There was also a belief that a race of people with a head of a dog really did exist at one time! In The Canterbury Tales the Wife of Bath, seen at the rear of the group, also made mention of Cana in Galilee where Jesus miraculouly turned water into wine.
Reputed to stand over seven feet tall, St Christopher is also depicted here as a Colossus, possibly mirroring the smaller version portrayed by Jankyn, the youth behind him wearing a red tunic and representing a young Constantine. So in this instance Van Eyck is pointing to St Christopher as the Roman Emperor Constantine who moved the imperial capital to Byzantium and renamed it Nova Roma (later known as Constantinople) straddling the Bosphorus.
This East to West connection links to another panel in the altarpiece, so too does the straddling stance taken up by the “Colossus”. It is meant to mirror the straddling theme applied to Henry Beaufort in the Just Judges panel.
Notice also how St Christopher’s feet are set wide apart, ready to take “one giant leap” across the Bosphorus for Christianity! And the man standing next to the clossus portrayed as Constantine the Great? Possibly St Paul, “called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.” (Romans 1:1) And if Van Eyck intended the white-haired figure to represent Paul, he may also have had in mind the missionary’s warning to the Philippians: “Beware of dogs!” (3:2)
“Set apart” may also be Van Eyck referencing the East-West Schism of the Church and Constantine’s move to Byzantium, a move seen by some as rash and reckless, and so echoing the the metaphor from Proverbs 26:11: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool reverts to his folly.” But with this metaphor Van Eyck also points to the indiscretion of his mentor Roger Campin, and an adulterous liaison which initially resulted in him being banished from Burgundy and having to set up his ‘business’ elsewhere before he was pardoned and allowed to return. As mentioned in the previous post, Van Eyck has used Campin’s likeness to depict St Christopher.
This is an update to an earlier post of the same name and a follow-on to the post I made a few days ago about the identity of the Pearl Poet.
A priest was once heard to say to a group of pilgrims: “There’s a bit of the dog in all of us”. He was referring to the times when people break out from their ordered and obedient nature.
There’s a sense of disorder in the Pilgrims panel of the Ghent Altarpiece – a giant of a man leading a group of rough but seemingly ready-to-follow pilgrims, all men with the exception of the woman at the back of the group identified in the previous post as the Wife of Bath and one of the travellers featured in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.
Could it be that Jan van Eyck is hinting at “long and tall tales”, or even “shaggy dog” stories told by ‘shaggy’ pilgrims? The clue comes through the leader of the group, St Christopher. His collared hair and flowing beard has a hairy-dog appearance. Van Eyck has even given the saint’s nose a shine. Closer inspection of others in the pack with their squinting eyes suggests they too have a-bit-of-the-dog about them.
An Orthodox Christopher portrayed as a dog-headed saint.
The explanation is that in Eastern Orthodox iconography St Christopher is represented with the head of a dog. Apparently it came about from a mistranslation of the latin word Cananeus which means Canaanite (Cana in Galilee is where Christopher, who was originally named Reprobus, is said to have come from). Along the way Cananeus became misinterpreted as Canineus (canine). There was also a belief that a race of people with a head of a dog really did exist at one time! In The Canterbury Tales the Wife of Bath, seen at the rear of the group, also made mention of Cana in Galilee where Jesus miraculouly turned water into wine.
Reputed to stand over seven feet tall, St Christopher is also depicted here as a Colossus, possibly mirroring the smaller version portrayed by Jankyn, the youth behind him wearing a red tunic and representing a young Constantine. So in this instance Van Eyck is pointing to St Christopher as the Roman Emperor Constantine who moved the imperial capital to Byzantium and renamed it Nova Roma (later known as Constantinople) straddling the Bosphorus.
This East to West connection links to another panel in the altarpiece, so too does the straddling stance taken up by the “Colossus”. It is meant to mirror the straddling theme applied to Henry Beaufort in the Just Judges panel. Notice also how St Christopher’s feet are set wide apart, ready to take “one giant leap” across the Bosphorus for Christianity! And the man standing next to the clossus portrayed as Constantine the Great? Possibly St Paul, “called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God.” (Romans 1:1) And if Van Eyck intended the white-haired figure to represent Paul, he may also have had in mind the missionary’s warning to the Philippians: “Beware of dogs!” (3:2)
“Set apart” may also be Van Eyck referencing the East-West Schism of the Church and Constantine’s move to Byzantium, a move seen by some as rash and reckless, and so echoing the the metaphor from Proverbs 26:11: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool reverts to his folly.” But with this metaphor Van Eyck also points to the indiscretion of his mentor Roger Campin, and an adulterous liaison which initially resulted in him being banished from Burgundy and having to set up his ‘business’ elsewhere before he was pardoned and allowed to return. As mentioned in the previous post, Van Eyck has used Campin’s likeness to depict St Christopher.
The ‘Jankyn’ figure of the youth in red introduces another theme in the panel – that of family.Firstly it points to the head above him as being Van Eyck’s brother, Hubert (a similar motif of the brothers appears on the centre panel of the altarpiece), echoing the dedication Jan recorded on the frame of the painting, that his brother Hugh was greater than himself. It was Hugh who was first commissioned to produce the altarpiece. Jan completed the work following his brother’s death in 1426.
Another family pairing is is that of Jesus and “the Lord’s brother” James (the Just). Jesus is also matched in appearance with his cousin John the Baptist, and placed at St Christopher’s shoulder with James beside him.
The painting below is attributed to the workshop of Roger van der Weyden and located at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts Belgium. Its title is King David Receives the Water of Bethlehem. Measuring 50cm x 32.7cm, the painting is dated between 1451 and 1475. It appears to be a section of a larger work but I don’t have access to any information to confirm this.
Three painters are featured in the foreground: Roger Campin, Rogier van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck.
C A T C H L I G H T 
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