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METROPOLITANOF ART BULLETIN1986XLIII, Number 40026-1521)

quarterly? 1986 by The Metropolitanof Art, Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street,York, N.Y. 10028. Second-class postage paidYork, N.Y. and Additional MailingTheMetropolitanMuseumofArt Bulletin isas a benefit to Museum members andby subscription. Subscriptions 18.00 aSingle copies 4.75. Four weeks' noticefor change of address. POSTMASTER: endchanges to Membership Department, TheMuseum of Art, Fifth Avenue andStreet, New York, N.Y. 10028. Back issuesmicrofilm, from University Micro-313 N. First Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan.(1905-1942) availableas areprint set or as individual yearlyAyer Company, Publishers,99 Main Street, Salem, N.H. 03079, or fromMuseum, Box 700, Middle Village, N.Y.GeneralManager of Publications:John P.in Chief of the Bulletin:Joan Holt.Joanna Ekman. Design: Emsworth

Portraitof Francesco 'Esteby Rogier vanWeyden (fig. 29)etail of Portraitof a Woman yMassys (fig. 34)


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arly Flemish portraits command our at-tention because of their unprecedentednaturalness. At their most descriptive,they strike us as potentially alive; they inducein us the desire to know more about the sit-ters, about the workings of their minds. View-ing them in the galleries, one tries to imaginethe thoughts and feelings and the histories ofthe individuals portrayed,but the personalitiesremain enigmatic and remote. Indeed, theseportraits seem to conceal more than to revealthe sitters' characters.

What, then, was the intention of the paint-ers who created these intriguing pictures? Toearly Flemish artists, portrait painting was buta part of a greater endeavor. Portraits wereoften components of larger works thatfulfilled a purpose beyond that of recordingindividual likenesses. The contributor of analtarpiece might have himself portrayed as awitness to a sacred event; or a patron mightorder a portraitof himself to be pairedwith animage of the Virgin and Child in an attitude ofperpetual prayer. Some works can be recog-nized as epitaphs and memorializing portraits,while others have contexts and circumstancesof commission that arefarfrom clear.Many ofthe portraits illustrated here are fragmentary,cut down from larger panels or parts of alarger ensemble. The original appearancesofsome have been altered. Some look like por-traits but may not be, and others do not ap-pear to be portraits but are.It is the purpose of this Bulletin,written byGuy Bauman, Research Assistant in the De-partment of European Paintings, to considerthe attitudes of early Flemish artists and theirpatrons toward portraiture and to investigatethe uses of the genre at the time. Relativelylittle is known about these works. Documentsthat might give us an idea of contemporaryattitudes-artists' contracts or literarydescrip-tions-are rare. More often than not, we donot even know the identities of the individualsportrayed, let alone their reasons for wantingtheir portraits painted. Moreover, the numberof surviving portraitsis but a small percentageof those that must have been produced, mak-ing it difficult to form an accurate idea of howthe genre evolved and exactly when and bywhom innovations were introduced.

The hundred years embraced by this essay,from 1425 to 1525, witnessed the developmentof an extraordinary style of painting, termednorthern Renaissance, that emerged radiantlyin the works of Jan van Eyck and Robert

Campin. The tradition they founded reachits culmination in the sixteenth century withe paintings of Quentin Massys andJan Gosart, who looked back to the founders' accomplishments and at the same time signalednew departure by adopting Italianate classicing forms. The painters considered here adescribed as Flemish-a designation usloosely to refer to the southern Netherlandsregion mostly within the borders of modeBelgium and including Flanders, Brabant, aHainaut. Many of the artists discussed in thBulletin came from towns outside the regibut gravitated to the cities that were northecapitals of art and commerce in the fifteenand early sixteenth centuries, particulaBruges and, later, Antwerp.The Metropolitan Museum of Art hasoutstanding collection of early Netherlandpaintings that includes portraits by all tleading practitioners of the genre except Jvan Eyck. The earliest are those of the piodonor and his wife on the left wing of RobCampin'sAnnunciationTriptych fig. 1), a worenowned for its realism based on light asharply defined volumes and for its rich symbolism; it is one of the treasures of TCloisters. In the galleries at the Metropolitwe have the opportunity to compare in tworks of these masters the great diversityapproach to the interpretation of their sujects. Petrus Christus'sCarthusian (fig. 28),a masterpiece of illusionism, looks directlyus from deep space, engaging us in an intimbut puzzling relationship. Rogier van dWeyden'sFrancesco d'Este (fig. 29) haughtdisregards us; he is the epitome of the sepossessed aristocrat,acharacterizationachievmore through abstraction than through dtailed description. One senses somethingHugo van der Goes'sown intense and fanatipersonality in his portrait of the gaunt adarkly handsome man painted in the ea1470s (p. 62). Hans Memling, a less prolematic painter, endows his portraits of tPortinaris (figs. 40, 41), members of a promnent Italianbanking family, with nobility apresence through a polished and exquistechnique; they are uncannily real. SuFlemish pictures, it is recorded, appearedcontemporary Italian observers to have beproduced, not by the artifice of human hanbut by all-bearing nature herself

Philippe de MontebeDirector


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E a r l y F l e m i s h P o r t r a i t s1 4 2 5 1 5 2 5

t is frequently observed that the rise of theportrait during the Renaissance was a log-ical result of man's rediscovery of himself ina newly anthropocentric age. It is less oftenobserved that northern European artists werethe first, in the early 1400s, to perfect the tech-

nical means to paint in a style particularlysuited to the creation of lifelike portraits. Theoil-base medium, first exploited to the fullestby Hubert andJan van Eyck (giving rise to thelegend of their invention of it), allowed paint-ers to simulate the appearance of the realworld with all its variety of textures and nu-ances of light and shadow. Flemish paintings,particularly portraits, were admired in Italyprecisely for the naturalness this technical per-fection allowed. In 1456 Bartolomeo Fazio, aGenoese humanist at the Neapolitan court ofAlfonso V of Aragon, expressed such appre-ciation in his description of the donors' por-traits on a now-lost triptych by Jan van Eyck.Fazio wrote, "On the outer side of the samepicture is painted Battista Lomellini, whosepicture it was-you would judge he lackedonly a voice-and the woman he loved, ofoutstanding beauty; and she too is portrayedexactly as she was."

During the fifteenth century the leadingpainters of Ghent, Bruges, Tournai, Brussels,and Louvain made for their patrons imagesthat appearedreal and alive, be they mysteriesof the Church, such as the Incarnation,or por-traits of a wealthy and powerful local patricianand his wife. These artists observed and re-corded the visual properties of the physicalworld more closely and carefully than hadever been done before. Theirs was the powerto create the illusion of a reality in which mor-tal and divine beings met. An awareness ofthis capability led them to develop a refined,

internally logical system of pictorial representation that distinguished between levels of reality and often separated the temporal fromthe sacred.In Robert Campin's Triptych of the Annuncition of about 1425-35 (fig. 1), which includthe earliest Flemish portraits at the Museumthe artist has taken obvious care to give h

subjects a convincing physical presence. Hdesire to represent the mystery of the Incarntion as timeless yet real has caused him to sthe Annunciation in a fifteenth-century domestic interior. The observation of natural dtail is so thorough that objects consistentlycast their multiple shadows in accord with thvarious light sources. A similar degree of pitorial sophistication is exhibited in the panel othe male donor, who, with his hat in hhands, kneels reverently. Although the doobefore him opens onto the Annunciationscene, the donor is framed in a space of hown, out-of-doors and apart from the inne

of the mostimportantf earlyNetherlandishhis triptych,paintedbyCampinabout1425-35,isplayscertaindiscrep-Whereashe roomof thecenter)and thef SaintJoseph (right)are,by the windowviews, wellthestreet,the donor(left) isat ground evel. Also, theanel has a greaternatu-han does the Annunciationin whichspaceis abstracted.must have beende-devisedto differentiateecularand sacred ealms.panel, 25/4 x 247/8 n.;wing, 253/8x 103/4in. TheCollection,1956 (56.70)


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Moreover, while the room of theand the workshop of Saintin the right wing are, judging by thewindows, clearly abovelevel, the donor is at ground level.he appears, in his devotion, to bea view of the holy event through thedoor, the casement of which is visiblethe left edge of the central panel.There may be even more subtle distinctionstemporal and sacred realms. The do-

occupy his space more convinc-than do the figures of the Annunciation,are abstracted-one might say spir-a flattened pattern, and the foldshis garment hang more naturally. Such sty-dissimilarities have led some scholars tothat the donors' panel is by a secondbut these dissimilarities may merely re-varying approaches to the different kindssubjects.Although fifteenth-century Flemish artists

may have considered portrait painting an ac-tivity significantly different from painting re-ligious subjects, it could be argued that theyregarded some half-length depictions of theVirgin and Child as belonging to a portraittradition. Painters' guilds throughout Europeoperated under the protection of Saint Luke,who was believed to have been a portraitist.The legend, of Greek origin and known inwestern Europe since at least the tenth cen-tury, holds that Luke made one or more por-traits of the Virgin. Representations of SaintLuke as an artist, such as that by Rogier vander Weyden (fig. 2), became popular in Flan-ders during the period considered here.In 1440 Fursy du Bruille, a canon at Cam-brai, brought from Rome a picture of theVirgin and Child believed to have beenpainted by Saint Luke (fig. 3). He bequeathedit to Cambrai Cathedral in 1450, and in thefollowing year the picture was installed in thechapel of the Trinity, where it became widely


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Accordingo legend,Saintwas a painteranddepictedVirginMaryat leastonce. Inworkofabout 1435-40 byvan der Weyden,Lukeherportrait n silverpoint.composition f thepainting isadaptedrom one byJan vanin the Louvrethatfeaturesaof the donorNicholasprayingto the VirginandIt has beensuggestedhatwork,and two otherversions,Alte Pinakothek,Munich,the State HermitageMuseum,arecontemporaryxactof a lost originalby van derMuseumof Fine Arts,Gift of Mr. and Mrs.Lee Higginson, 93.153

venerated. The image owes its appeal to an es-pecially tender treatment of the subject, withmother and child embracing cheek to cheek,but the source of its subsequent fame was itsreputation for effecting miracles. In 1454 amember of the cathedral chapter commis-sioned Petrus Christus to make three copies ofthe picture, and in the next year he orderedfrom Hayne de Bruxelles twelve more, one ofwhich is generally considered to be a picture inKansas City (fig. 4). The Museum's excep-tionally fine Virginand Child by Dieric Bouts(fig. 5) is obviously derived from the samemodel, although slightly removed. This workis remarkable for its natural detail-the com-

monness of the Virgin's hands, for instancyet its dependence upon what the artist qupossibly believed to be an authentic portraithe Virgin cannot be denied.Can we question whether Bouts considethis work to be a portrait?It is not, of courThe difference between Bouts's VirginChild and a true portrait lies not so muchthe religious theme of the subject as in

relationship between the artist and the subjThe difference in the relationship can demonstrated by comparing the Bouts toMuseum's Portrait of a Carthusian by PetChristus (figs. 6, 28), dated 1446. Becausethe incised gold halo, it has been sugges


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uringthe ifteentho be a portraitof themadeby Saint Luke, thede Grace is, ina late ourteenth-centurytal-replicaofan Italo-Byzantineapparently riginated1300 in Tuscany.CathedralCambrai

4. This Virgin and Child afterthe Notre-Dame de Grace ofCambrai fig. 3) is one ofseveralattributedo Hayne de Bruxelles,who was commissionedn 1454/55to make twelvecopiesof theCambrai con. Otherversionspos-sibly by Hayne in the MuseesRoyauxdes Beaux-Arts deBelgique,Brussels,and in theChurchof Saint Martin, Frasnes-lez-Buissenal(Belgium),are muchcloser o the Cambraipaintingthan the Virgin and Child illus-tratedhere. It has beensuggestedthat the KansasCity versionmightbe associatedwith one ofthree ost copiescommissionedn1454from PetrusChristus.Al-though hispicturecannot,onstylisticgrounds,be attributed oPetrusChristus,it possiblywaspaintedaftera prototypeby himand would seemmore to reflectChristus'style than thatof any ofthe othercopiesattributed oHayne de Bruxelles. The Nelson-Atkins Museumof Art, KansasCity, Missouri,Nelson Fund

overleaf and following page5. Like thepictureattributedoHayne de Bruxelles, the Mu-seum'sine Virgin and Child byDiericBouts,paintedabout1455-60, derivesrom theCambraiNotre-Dame de Grace.This relationshipuggestshow theartistmighthave regardedhepaintingas part of a portrait radi-tion. Replicasby Boutsof theMuseum'swork in the MuseoNazionale del Bargello,Florence,and the M. H. de YoungMemo-rial Museum,San Francisco,andother versionsrom his workshopattest to the widespreadopularityof the composition.8/2X 6V2 n.Bequestof TheodoreM. Davis,1915. TheodoreM. Davis Collec-tion (30.95.280)6. The closelyobserved nd metic-ulouslydescribedeaturesof thesitter in PetrusChristus'sPortraitof a Carthusian indicate hathewaspaintedor drawn rom life.The halo makingthis a saintlyimageis almostcertainlya later

additionbut has led some scholto conclude hatthepainting isimaginaryportraitof Saint Bruthe eleventh-centuryounderofCarthusianorderSee alsofig.


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Thefeaturesof the aristocraticat the left are sogeneralizedit unlikelythatpor-ofspecificpersonsarein-The identificationf themanas Saint Eligius is noteither.His halo, like that inPortraitof a Carthusian6, 28), is probablynot origi-although hisfact wouldnotiscount hepossibilitya saint is represented.Eligius was a seventh-centuryand bishopof Noyonbecamehepatronsaint ofnd otherworkersofas well as of blacksmithsothers n equinetrades.In thecenturyhe was usuallys a bishopora black-depicted s a gold-he customarily oldsaor an engagementing.manhereweighsa ringitsgold content.Coins appearstackedforassayingas well.The ring, the couple's estures,

the belton the counterbefore(whichhas beenidentified smarriage irdle) appear o indi-a marriage ontext. Thepic-inscribedn Latin "MasterChristusmademe in the1449," may be an earlyex-of genrepaintingillustratinggoldsmith's radeand contain-an allegorical ommentarynriteof matrimony.t seemsbut it has a parallel inworkof 1440 by Jan vantheso-calledMerchant andAgent. The meaningand

of Christus's aintingre-enigmatic. 39x 337/6 in.LehmanCollection,1975

This head, attributed o HugoderGoes, exemplifies heof recognizing nstancesofn earlyFlemishpaint-At firstglance it appears oa portraitof a Benedictinemonkhas, indeed,long beenre-as one. It has, however,cut rom a largercompositionis more ikely afragmentaryf a BenedictineWhendepictingholyperson-earlyFlemishpainters re-avoidedusing supernaturaluch as halos in

effecta greaternaturalism,they beganalso to dependand moreupon models aken97/8 71/4 n. Bequest ofDreicer,1921. The

that this is an imaginary portrait of Saint The primacy of this relationship in theBruno, the eleventh-century founder of the teenth-century Flemish view of portraituCarthusian order. The halo, however, is al- can be deduced from the contemporary termost certainly an addition, and the firsthand for a portrait, conterfeytsel, which means "tencounter between artist and sitter apparent in which is made against or opposite somethinthis work testifies to the picture's status as a else." Its cognate in modern English, "coutrue portrait. The striking immediacy of the terfeit," gives the term a shading that convesitter, despite his anonymity, and the meticu- the power of early Flemish portraits to deceilous description of his features indicate that he the eye.must have been painted or drawn from life. The absence of such immediacy and spe


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in the figures of a lady and gentle-in Petrus Christus's Saint Eligius at the(fig. 7), painted three years later,most observers to conclude they

possibly be true portraits. Their ap-and contemporary dress notwith-these probably are, as Max J.asserts, no more than a gener-

"portrait" of a betrothed couple, a sortupper-class Everyman and his fiancee. Theof this unusual composition is enig-even the identification of Eligius isA small panel at the Museum attributed tovan der Goes (fig. 8) presents a similar

problem of interpretation. For years the paint-ing has been thought to be a portrait of a Ben-edictine monk, which it indeed appears to be.However, the panel has been cut down on allfour sides, and Lorne Campbell has rightlyobserved that the head might be a fragmen-tary representation of a Benedictine saint,perhaps Benedict himself To a degree it con-forms to a saintly type, and the cleric'sexpres-sion, unusually somber for a portrait of theperiod, supports this view.

Recognizing portraits in early Flemishpaintings is made more difficult by the devel-opment of disguised or participant portrai-ture, whereby living individuals are depicted9. Thefirst knownparticipanportraitsappeared oward hemiddleof thefifteenth centuryFlanders.Rogiervan der WeyEntombment of about1450,whichNicodemus(wearinga hhasportraitlike eatures, may ban early example. A documeninstance s the self-portrait haRogierincludedamongthe by-standers,presumablyalong witportraitsof others,in one of thpanels illustrating heJusticeoHerkinbaldpaintedabout 1440the Brussels town hall (destroin 1695). Galleriadegli UffiziFlorence10. The Marriage Feast atCana, by Juan de Flandes, in-cludesa figure outsidethe loggthe left thatappears o be a paipantportrait,possibly of the ahimself It is one offorty-sevenpanels that werepaintedabout1500for Isabella the Catholicqueenof Castile and Leon, anone of thesecontainsa participportraitof the queen. 81/4X6/4TheJack andBelle Linsky Cotion, 1982 (1982.60.20)


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having an active part in compositions withor historical subjects. Such portraitstoward the middle of the fifteenthIn Rogier van der Weyden's Entomb-of about 1450 (fig. 9), for example, theof Christ is supported by Joseph ofNicodemus, and the head oflatter,on the right, displays the descriptiveof a portrait. Is it one? Certainly aorder to have himself cast in the roleNicodemus would express an appropriatein Passion plays popular at the time,

given the line, addressed to"Do thou take the head, for I amto take the feet." Similarly, it hasbeen debated whether the head of Saintin Rogier's picture (fig. 2) is a self-This, too, is an attractive proposi-However, definite conclusions cannot beRogier's paintings.A participant portrait may be included in

MarriageFeast at Cana (fig. 10)de Flandes, an artist who is knownto have worked in Spain but whose styleacquiredname clearly indicate Flemish or-In this pictureone figure stands apart:theoutside the loggia at the left whose glance

engages the viewer's. Who is this manappearsto be a late arrival at the banquet?panel is one of forty-seven painted aboutfor Isabella of Castile and Le6n, and a

portrait of the queen is found inof the others. It is clear from portraits ofconsort, Ferdinand, that the man de-here cannot be the king, but he may betheir court or possibly theas has been suggested.Had it not been for documentation, the dis-in the Museum's Virgin and(fig. 11)surely would not have been rec-The painting is one of the finest of

copies after an original by Jan Gossart.van Mander, the early sixteenth-centurybiographer of Flemish and Dutch

records that while Gossart was in theBurgundy, lord of Veere,painted a picture of Mary in which the facethat of the lady of Veere,

Bergen. A copy after a straight-portrait of Anna painted by Gossart1525 (fig. 12), a few years later than theand Child, is perhaps less idealized and

opposite11. In the Museum'sVirgin andChild thefigure of Mary is proba-bly a disguised ortraitof Annavan Bergen, lady of Veere seefig. 12). Thepainting is one of thefinest of severalcopiesof this com-position by Jan Gossartthat havebeenassociatedwith a referencemadeby Karelvan Mander n1604. He recordshat whileGossartwas in service to the lordof Veere,Adolf of Burgundy,hepainteda pictureof the VirginandChild in which the ace of theVirginwas modeled fterthatofthe lord'swife and the infantJesusafter her child. 173/4x 1358 in.Gift ofJ. PierpontMorgan,1917(17.190.17)

12. Thisportraitof Anna vanBergen,lady of Veere,afteranoriginalby Jan Gossart(calledMabuse),supports he identifica-tion of herdisguisedportrait n theMuseum'sVirgin and Child (fig.11), althoughAnna's eaturesare,appropriately,ess idealizedherethanin theportrayalof the Virgin.Thepainting, in Boston, is one oftwo versionsof the composition;the other,probably he original, isin a privatecollection.IsabellaStewartGardnerMuseum,Boston

supports theof her portrait here. Thepicture would not have been in-


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tended as a proper portrait. Its associatwith portraiture derives from the artist'spendence upon observation from life, a prtice detected in partial application in BouVirginand Child (fig. 5). Still, Adolf of Bgundy would have seen in the painting an iage of his wife, a concept not as sacrilegiouit seems today. Contemporary religious prtice emphasized personal identification wChrist (witness Albrecht Diirer's renownself-portrait of 1500 in Christ-like guise inAlte Pinakothek, Munich); similarly,Virgin was the ideal model of feminine virfor all women to emulate.

Excepting Christus's Saint Eligius, the tworks by Juan de Flandes and Gossart, andepitaph yet to be discussed, the early Flemportraits at the Museum are of three typdonor portraits, independent portraits, ahalf-length devotional portraits. The thforms were established by the end of the foteenth century, although the third seems thto have been a rarity. Generalizations are dgerous, but perhaps it can be said that donportraits fulfilled a public function in aligious context and that independent portrwere of a personal, often secular nature.the middle of the fifteenth century, the meing of these two forms in half-length devtional portrait diptychs and triptychs seemshave become common.


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o n o r P o r t r a i t s

Dalmau'sVirgin of thedated1445, wasthe chapelof Bar-own hall. The altarpiecehe artist'samiliarityof angels rom theof HubertandJan vanGhentAltarpiece,whichust aftercompletion.Thefigures ofVirginand Child appear o beJan'spainting orvan der Paele (fig. 16), andarrangementf the donorsmaya lost designby Hubertof1425for an altarpiece om-by the city magistrates fThe contract f 1443forVirgin of the Councillorshat the councillors ach

depictedwearing"acoifedcapscarletcolor,"but this was notThey must have real-that it would have appearedot to have removedhats in thepresenceof theMaryandthe ChristChild.de Arte deCataluna,

n about 1513 Albrecht Diirer, the firstnorthern European artist to record his ideason his profession, wrote in a draft for theintroduction to his book on painting that itsfunction is "to serve the Church . . . and to

preserve the likeness of men after their death."This statement serves well to introduce thepropelling force behind the works of northernEuropean painters of the precedingcentury, especially Flemishdonor portraits. It ex-presses both spir-

duality of purpose that motivated patrowho were at once deeply religious ahighly worldly.The artistic flowering in Flanders duringfifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the resof unparalleled local prosperity that fosteredlarge, wealthy middle class including mchants, bankers, and lay clergy. Although thwere thoroughly entrenched inmaterial world, members the new monied socie

like all Christian


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the lowerregister f theof HubertandJan vanGhentAltarpiece,com-in 1432, imagesof the do-Joos Vijdand his wife,Borluut,appearall theifelikebecauseof the illu-culptural epresentationfintercessoryaints,John theandJohn the Evangelist.of Saint Bavo, inlocationof the Vijds'fu-chapel,wasformerlythepar-ofJohn the Baptist;the inclusionhereof thatwho is also thepatronofMoreover,heBaptistwasprecursor;nd his at-"theLambof God, whichaway the sins of the world"1:29), is the central ymbolthealtarpiece'snterior.The rea-or connectingElisabethwithJohn the Evangelistless clear. n any event, bothBaptistand the Evangelistcontemporary itnesses o

ife, and it is common othempairedin worksmade oredicatedo one or theCathedralof Saint Bavo,

The woman n the left wing ofCampin'sTriptych of the(seealsofig. 1) haspaintedoverthe background,hat the maledonorhe altarpiecebeforemarriage ndsubsequently adwife'sportraitpaintedin. Thestandingbeside hegate be-themis a lateradditionasHis identificationnd theor his inclusionhave notsecurelyestablished.He iss a messenger,nd thewith the coatofarmsofon his chest ndicatesto thatcity.At the samethe igure may representheIsaiah, God'smessenger,writingsarean importantor the iconography f theand rightpanels.The donorsare situated n a

gardenthatmay representGardenof Paradise.Porta(Gate of Heaven) is an epi-of the Virginbecause t theof the Incarnationhegateheavenwas reopenedo human-thegarden's ate here has beeno the donors.The rosebushother lowersin the left wingplants associatedwith theMary. Theprayerbeadsearly orm of rosary)heldbydonor'swife and the rosebud nhat denote pecialdevo-to the cultof the Virgin.

The Church, the central cultural institution,flourished. New building was widespread,and older churches were expanded to includeadditional chapels. The foundation of chap-laincies was one type of religious donationthrough which the wealthy hoped to securesalvation. Churches received endowments forthe maintenance of altars, at which requiemmasses including prayersfor the donors' soulswould be celebrated. The embellishment ofthe altar with an altarpiece was often part ofsuch a foundation. The altarpiece might besculpted or painted, or both, and its principalsubject would depend upon the dedication.Whatever the subject-an Annunciation, aCrucifixion, an enthroned Virgin and Child-it related to the liturgy of the Mass, to Christ'ssacrificefor man'sredemption. Portraitsof thebenefactors, kneeling in appropriately devo-tional attitudes, were often included in worksthey commissioned. During the founder's life-time, the public donation displaying the por-trait would enhance the individual's socialprestige. After death, the effigy of the piousdonor would serve as a memorial, seemingly asurrogate presence in perpetual prayer.Fifteenth-century patrons were quick to re-alize the effect of the early Flemish painters'naturalistic style and to exploit their skill atillusion in the glorification of both God andthemselves. Such motives are evident in a raredocument of 1443: the contract for an altar-

piece (fig. 13) commissioned by the tocouncillors of Barcelona from Luis DalmaSpanish painter sent to Flanders in 1431Alfonso V of Aragon, presumably to learnFlemish technique. An excerpt from the of this document reveals an appreciationofrealistic effects made possible by the oil-bmedium as well as a desire to use it to recthe opulence merited by the patrons' sostanding:And afterwards [the artist] shall paint insame right part [of the altarpiece] threthe said honorable Councillors . . . kn

ing with their hands clasped and directheir eyes toward the image of the VirMary. And the said Councillors shall be picted according to the proportions andpearances of their persons, with their fathe same as they are in life, well-formand each one dressed in long robes ancoifed cap of scarlet color, so beautiful they appear to be of cochineal, withsleeve slits and hangings seeming to be liwith lovely marten fur.This dual motivation is manifest in the ptraits of Joos Vijd and his wife, ElisabBorluut, on the exterior of the renowGhent Altarpiece, completed in 1432 byvan Eyck (fig. 14). The altarpiece, the bdocumented of early Flemish paintings, is pserved at the Cathedral of Saint Bavo, Ghe


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16.Jan van Eyck'spainting, dated1436, shows the donor oris(George)van der Paelepresentedto the Virginand Child by hispatronsaint, George,in the com-pany of Saint Donatian. VanderPaele was a canonat the Cathe-dralof Saint Donatian, in Bruges,to whichthis work wasgiven, andhisglance is directed oward hatsaint in van Eyck'spicture. Thedegree o whichJan hereachievedan illusionof realitythatfulfilledthe donor'saspirationss unsur-passedby any otherartistof thecentury.Groeningemuseum,ruges

in the chapel that the Vijds financed at greatexpense. A deed registered before the Ghentmagistrates and the church administrators in1435 stipulates that a Mass at the chapel'saltarbe celebrated each day in perpetuity in honorof God, the Virgin Mary, and all the saints, forthe donors' own salvation and that of theirancestors (they had no children). The degreeto which their likenesses seem to be living,breathing presences is heightened by the illu-sionistic sculptural representations of SaintsJohn the Baptist and John the Evangelist, towhom, as intercessors, the donors' prayersareaddressed. An inscription across the loweredges of the panels' frames prominently re-cords Vijd's commission and indicates that heengaged "the best painters that could befound." The donor's zeal was to the greaterglory of God, but by association he and hiswife share in the glory. The interior of thealtarpiecedisplays the Universal Communionof All Souls in Christ-an eternal Mass inwhich the donors, through their foundation,hope to participate, as is indicated by theirpresence in prayerfulattitudes on the exterior.There is a sense of drama in the relationshipbetween the exterior and interior: the donorsanticipate Judgment Day, when they will bereceived among the blessed.


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: : :


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Unfortunately, much less is known aboutof the commission ofCampin's nearly contemporaneous1, 15), often called the Merodeafter the Belgian family that owned itthe nineteenth century. The triptych's small

may indicate that it was painted for a pri-chapel, but the possibility that it was des-

auxiliary altar in a church shouldThe male donor, like Jooswears a large purse. It is in this contextonly an indication of his wealth, but anhis charity-the putting of that

good works.The triptych is one of a number of stylis-related works traditionally groupedpaintings in the Stidelsches

erroneously said tocome from an abbey in Flemalle (nearHence the paintings in the group wereto an artist designated the Master ofidentification of this masterCampin is now generally ac-

although at least one scholar assignstriptych to a painter inrather than to the master

The design of the left wing and X-rays indi-male donor originally appearedsqueezed in at the left, and

figure in the distance are paintedthe background, suggesting that the manthe work before his marriagesubsequently had his wife's portraitThe enhancement of social status by a

marriage in part explains thetaken to include her. The donors' coats ofas well in the stained-

windows of the room of the Annuncia-Only the coat of arms on the left, whichto heraldic form must be the hus-

has been identified; it belongs to thea family prominent in Mechelen.suspects the Christian name of the malewas Jozef because of the prominence ofJoseph in the triptych, notwithstanding

convincing explication recently providedHahn that recognizes Joseph (hith-regarded as an unusual subject to be

separately) as a figure of God the Fa-in the Earthly Trinity of the Holy Family.

omized by the picture completed in 1436 byJan van Eyck forJoris van der Paele, a canon atthe Cathedral of Saint Donatian in Bruges(fig. 16). An encounter of mortal and divinebeings in another world is given concrete pic-torial form through close observation of thevisual properties of this world. The headof the canon is perhaps the most strikinglynaturalistic portrait of the fifteenth century.The meticulous rendering of the veins in hiseyes and temples and the optical distortion ofthe prayer book's text through the lens ofhis spectacles have enabled twentieth-centuryophthalmologists to diagnose the cause of hisfailing vision.The canon's heavenly reception appears afait accompli. His physical presence is em-phasized particularly by two details: SaintGeorge's hand casts a shadow across the can-on's robes and his foot treadsupon them. Thefigures of the Virgin and Child, in turn, arereflected in the saint's polished helmet. VanEyck has fully utilized the means available tohim for establishing a convincing illusion ofreality. It is as if the donor's prayers had beenanswered and the artist were there to recordthe fact. Indeed, the artisthas included in SaintGeorge's shield at the extreme right whatmust be an image of himself reflected fromoutside and in front of the pictorial space. VanEyck seems to appear here as witness just ashe is reflected in the mirror in his ArnolfiniMarriage Portrait, at the National Gallery,London.

Despite our familiarity with the painted im-ages of five and a half intervening centuries,we still marvel at van der Paele's picture. Itseffect on fifteenth-century eyes, totally unac-customed to such illusionism, can hardly beimagined. Such imagery must have inspiredfaith in the minds of observers and given tan-gible credibility to donors' hopes and desires.Although the level of accomplishment of theVirginand Child with Canon van derPaelewasseldom attained by artistswho followed in thetradition ofJan van Eyck and Robert Campin,they strove to achieve the same effects.There is good reason to suppose that theVirginand Child with Canon van derPaele wasnot intended for an altar but as an epitaph me-morializing the donor and his foundation, asOne senses in the Merode Triptych thatFlemish painters were able to create a

reality in which the donor's aspira-appearto be realized. This ability is epit-

Elisabeth Dhanens has suggested. The inscrip-tion on the original frame of van der Paele'spicture records his foundation of a chaplaincyat Saint Donatian's in 1434, the year he was

17. The epitaphof Anna vanNieuwenhove,nee de Blaserepaintedby the Masterof the SUrsulaLegendin 1480, incluat the upper eft a "portrait"city of Bruges. The topographviewfrom thesouthwest howpart of thatcity's skyline. Thethree argetowers-all still staing-are, from left to right, thof the Churchof Saint Salvatothe Churchof Our Lady (wheAnna was buried),and of the thall. The Minnewaterdistricwith itsfootbridgeand two towpartsof the city's ortificationsin the oreground; f the two, othe PoedertorenPowdertowethe left, remains. 199/16X 139/16RobertLehmanCollection,19(1975.1.114)


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excused from taking part in church servicesbecause of failing health, and van Eyck proba-bly began the painting in that year.The canonsurely had his impending death in mind whenhe founded the chaplaincy and commissionedthe work, although he survived until 1442 andfounded a second chaplaincy in 1441.One picture at the Museum is certainly anepitaph: the Virginand Child, with Saint AnnePresentinga Woman(fig. 17), painted by themodestly talented Bruges contemporary ofHans Memling called the Master of the SaintUrsula Legend. The doll-like effigy has littleforce as a portrait, in part because it was prob-

ably painted posthumously. The Latin inscrtion is garbled but may be paraphra"Anna, daughter ofJan de Blasere and wifeJan, son of Michiel van Nieuwenhove, diedOctober 5, 1480; may she rest in peaAmen." Jan van Nieuwenhove (the brotherMarten [see fig. 39]) was a member opowerful patrician family in Bruges. He mried Anna de Blasere in 1478. She died the yafter the birth of their daughter and ochild, and the panel was commissioned psumably by Jan as a memorial to his wife. coat of arms is displayed on the left of wappears to be the panel's original frame, a


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In Hans Memling'spaintingofVirginand Child with Saintsand Barbara nd music-angels, the donorpor-at the left-to be an intrusion.Painted1480, thepicturerepeats hef the centerpanel ofHospitalof SaintJohnfig. 19). The artist'sor symmetryhas re-in a curiouscompositionalthat balances he donorBarbara's ower.Thebower s an addition,pos-by anotherartist,paintedlandscape ackground.287/8 n. Bequestof Benjamin1913 (14.40.634)

Probably ommissionedhortly1475 and completednthe high altarpieceor theof theHospitalof Saintin Bruges,is Hans Mem-greatestwork. The centerof the triptych hows theand Childflankedby an-Saints Catherineof Alex-and Barbara representativesthe active andcontemplativerespectively), nd SaintsJohnBaptistandJohn the Evan-(patronsof the hospital).Inaintingat the Metropolitan(fig. 18), Memlingre-the lowerhalf of the centercomposition,with minoror a donorwhosepor-he addedat the left. In an-workofabout1480, theJohn

Triptychn the NationalLondon,Memlinghe whole compositiono aormatand includeddonorof Donne, his wife, anddaughter.MemlingmuseumSint-JansHospitaal,

hers is impaled with his on the right.The deceased is presented by her patronsaint, Anne, who is accompanied by dimin-utive figures of her daughter, the Virgin Mary,and of the Christ Child, which serve as herattributes. This convention produces an oddarrangement whereby Anna turns her back onthe Christ Child, who nonetheless appears tobless her. If this is the original frame, the factthat it bears no traces of hinges indicates thatthe panel was not the right half of a diptych,but quasi-independent. It may have been in-tended for display beside an altarpiece, the ob-ject of Anna's devotion, near her grave in theChurch of Our Lady, in Bruges.It is not known whether the Metropolitan'sMystic Marriage of Saint Catherine by HansMemling (fig. 18) served a commemorativefunction. Although they are realized here in aless distinguished form, the desires of theanonymous donor were probably much the

same as those of Canon van der Paele. Tdonor is inconspicuously introduced atback of a gathering of the Virgin and ChSaints Catherine of Alexandria and Barbaand two music-making angels set in a garof paradise. His devotion to the cult ofVirgin is demonstrated by the prayer behe holds. The picture's title derives from Christ Child's action. He puts a ring on finger of Catherine, who saw herself in asion mystically united with Christ as bride. (The Christ Child's action serves herone of Catherine's attributes, in additionher sword and wheel.) However, the title dnot account for the equally prominent SaBarbara, whose attribute, the tower, loobehind her.

The composition of the painting depedirectly upon the center panel of the hightarpiece that Memling completed in 1479 the Hospital of SaintJohn in Bruges (fig. 1text continues on p. 30


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20. At an early butunknowndate, the donorportraits n GerardDavid's Triptych of the Nativityweretransformednto saintly im-ages by the additionof appropriateattributes.The man, kneelingatthe left infront of SaintJerome,was madeinto Anthony Abbot bythe inclusionof a pig. His wife, atthe rightwith Saint Vincent,be-cameCatherineof Alexandriawitha crown,a sword,and a wheel.The triptych's enterpanel is afree adaptationof a lost originalbyHugo van der Goes. The sheafofwheat in the oreground,a eu-charistic ymbol typicalof van derGoes, isfound again in his re-nownedPortinariAltarpiece(fig.45). Tempera nd oil on canvas,transferredrom wood. Centralpanel, 351/4X 28 in.; each wing,3514 x 123/8 in. The Jules BacheCollection,1949 (49.7.20a-c)


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21. Rogiervan der Weyden'sCrucifixionTriptych,painteshortly after1440, is one of thearliest urviving in which a cotinuouslandscapeunites the scein the centerpanel and the winPortraitsof the donorand his wappearat the lowerrightcornethe centerpanel, but a fissurebtweenthem and the Crucifixioseems to keepthe donorsat acertaindistance.If thefissurerto the earthquakehat occurrethe momentof Christ'sdeath anrent the veil of the Temple,it cbe interpreted,aradoxically,assymbolof the "new and livingway" for all believers nto thepresenceof God. KunsthistoriMuseum, Vienna

acceptance of a preexisting com-betrays what here must have been aless intense interaction between artist

patron than that between van Eyck andPerhaps this donor's financialwere more modest than those of thebut the formulization in evidence re-in general a relaxed attitude toward icon-in works by artistsnear the end of the

century, and especially those bywho recycled this and other com-for various patrons.A similarly loose appropriation of imageryin the works of GerardDavid, Mem-most important successor in Bruges.panel of his Triptych f the NativityMuseum (fig. 20) is a free copy after a

original by Hugo van der Goes. The do-kneeling and presented by their patronare depicted in the wings; the man isSaint Jerome at the left and his wife isSaint Vincent at the right. The arrange-portraits is the most commonnearly standard-in donationsmarriedcouples. Were this not the case, wenot recognize these figures as portraitsat an early date, for unknown rea-they were transformed into images of

Anthony Abbot and Catherine ofby the addition of appropriateacquired a pig, and she receivedcrown, a sword, and a wheel.

The concept of creating a distance betweenmortal and divine beings that we detected inCampin's triptych (fig. 1) has by now beenrelaxed considerably as well. The donors arerelegated to the wings, but they are, throughthe artist's advanced skill with perspective,combined with the figures of the Nativity in asingle, continuous space-the interior of themanger unifying the three panels.

Rogier van der Weyden's Crucifixion Trip-tych in Vienna (fig. 21), painted shortly after1440, is one of the earliest surviving triptychsin which the three partsare united by a contin-uous landscape. At the right of the centerpanel the unidentified donors kneel reverentlyat Calvary. However, a fissure dividing theground between the couple and the Crucifix-ion appears to separate the mortals from theholy event-to preserve a proper distance. Atthe same time, it may be the result of theearthquake that occurred at the moment ofChrist's death and rent the veil of the Temple(Matthew 27:51) and hence a symbol of the"new and living way" for all believers into thepresence of God (Hebrews 10:20). Thus thedividing fissure signifies, paradoxically, that itcan be bridged by faith.John the Evangelist, like the male donor,looks toward Christ while he supports theswooning Virgin, who embraces the foot ofthe cross. Contemporary theology granted tothe Virgin an important role in man's redemp-


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As seen particularlyin works by Rogier,suffering was viewed as parallel toof her compassion-liter-her cosuffering-she was venerated aswho would act as intercessor onon Judgment Day. In Rogier'sher gaze is directed compassionatelyAt first glance Joos van Cleve's Crucifixiont the Museum (fig. 22), painted more

eighty years later, seems to demonstratethe conventions of donor por-had changed. Just as in Rogier's trip-the saints in the wings are united withfigures in the center panel by a continuousby now a common device. The do-

depicted in the same attitude as Rogier'swife, and he occupies the same posi-right of the Crucifixion. In place offissure, however, the donor's patron saint

appears. The saint has been identified asJoseph of Arimathea, but this is surely incor-rect, as that saint can be seen in the back-ground dressed quite differently. The attributethat lies at his feet, a sword, indicates that he isSaint Paul. His action is related to the Virgin'sin Rogier's triptych-he puts one arm and aleg around the cross-but he turns toward thedonor and emphatically places the other handon the donor's head (see fig. 23). The Virginand Saint John, whose presence at the Cru-cifixion is requiredhistorically, stand to eitherside at a certain distance. The donor com-munes with Christ and his sacrifice-throughthe patron saint-much more personally anddirectly than Rogier's donors. The differencein presentation bespeaks a change in religioussensibility that anticipates the onset of theProtestant Reformation.

22. Painted about1525, Joos vCleve'sCrucifixionTriptycshows our standingsaints in iwings:John the BaptistandCatherineof Alexandria at theandAnthony of PaduaandNicholas of Tolentinoat the riThe donorappearsat the lowerightof the centerpanel infronJohn the Evangelistand opposthe VirginMary. He has reveently removedhis hat and laid on thegroundbeforehim. Theswordnext to it is the attributhis patronsaint, Paul. The scashape of the triptych'supper edbecameashionableduringthedecadesof the sixteenthcenturCentralpanel, 3834x 2914 in.each wing, 393/4x 127/8in. Beqof GeorgeBlumenthal,1941(41.190.20a-c)


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In this detailofJoos vanTriptych22), thefigurewith one handand the otheron theof the donormust be thatpatronsaint. He haspre-beenmistakenly dentifiedJosephofArimathea,but thatdressed uitedifferently,up-the headof Christin thecene in the back-Thefigure in the ore-mustbe Saint Paul becausetheattribute,a sword,thatfeet-just as Saintwheel lies at her eetleft wing of the triptych.(Pauwel)was not a commonname in Flandersduringfifteenthand earlysixteenthwhereas n Italy "Paolo"in wide use. The altarpiecesrecordedn a privatecollectionGenoa, a city with whichAnt-had close tradeconnections.

actorsand the inclusion fsaintsin the rightsuggest hathe was an Ital-who hadbusiness n Antwerp.25. TheseportraitsofAlatruyeand Mariearesixteenth-centuryopiesoriginalsprobablyby RobertAlatruye, who lived indiedin 1446 and his wife,ThepaintedborderswithrepeatedmottoBien faire(Deignedto do Well)prob-reflect he originalpaintings'rames. The sitterswouldappearedo be resting heirupon the rames'lowerMuseesRoyauxdes Beaux-de Belgique, Brussels, nat the MuseedesBeaux-Tournai

In d ep en d en t P o r t r a i t s

t the close of the fourteenth century, thecommissioning of independent paintedportraits was primarily a prerogative of

ruling noble families. These portraits were notso much exercises in vanity as demonstrationsof position and power. Collectively they es-tablished a visual record of family historythat supported dynastic succession. Individu-ally they promoted in a propagandistic waythe cause of the potentate: often copied andpresumably widely distributed, such portraitsserved to remind the viewer of the ruler'spower wherever they were displayed.With the economic prosperity and wide-spread affluence at the beginning of the fif-teenth century, it seems to have becomeincreasingly common for members of the

lesser nobility and the wealthy bourgeoisiecommission portraits in imitation of aricratic practice. Certainly the desire to fostesense of family history was a factor. Coupoften commissioned portrait diptychs tcelebrated their conjugal union, such as thof Barthelemy Alatruye and his wife MaPacy (figs. 24, 25), sixteenth-century copiesoriginals painted probably by Robert CampIn the fifteenth century coats of arms wcommonly included on the frames (usulost) or on the panels' reverses. In these copthe sitters' coats of arms are superimpoagainst the background field at the upper lFlemish painters arrived empirically at three-quarter profile view, and it became standard format in the north. In contrast


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classically derived pure profile portrait de-Italian artists, it al-display their skill at modeling

heightened illusionism of theirprompted Flemish artists to question thefield of vision required by a head-

portrait. Framing devices cameincorporated in an illusionistic manner.the portraits of Alatruye and his wife,onto the spacethe sitters, who often rest theirupon the lower ledge. Jan van Eyck,

approached the frame as an inte-part of the picture's composition. In theTymotheosof 1432 (fig. 26), he hasa stone parapet with inscriptions

painted and chiseled. In aby Jan that preserves its original frame,portrait of the goldsmith Jan de Leeuw27), dated 1436, the illusionism of the im-extends to the frame itself, which has been

to look like engraved metal. Here thegazes directly at the viewer. This deviceperhaps van Eyck's invention, and it pro-

unnerving sense of a portrait thatobserve us as we it.Despite the inscriptions on these two por-the circumstances of their commissionsknown. The Netherlandish inscriptionframe of the Jan de Leeuw reads: "Jan[lion pictogram for Leeuw] who, on Saint

day,opened his eyes for the first time,Jan van Eyck has now portrayed me. Itbegan: 1436." It recordssitter's identity, his day of birth (October1401), he name of the artist, and the yearof

cleverly conceived inscription,repeatedreferences to sight, combinesgaze and van Eyck's

powers of vision to makeportrait a consummate expression of the

ability to mirror reality. Van Eyckin a God-like way, not only to havesight and to have

his rebirth, but also, recalling Fazio'sto have given the portrait a voice.If the earlier Tymotheos eems less to be abreathing presence, it could be in part

picture possiblyAlthough the meaning of the GreekTYM.WEOC,rom which the pic-derives, is far from clear, the simu-inscription beneath it in French,

SOVVENIR (loyal memory), might indi-a commemorative purpose. The painted

inscription in Latin below the French recordsthe date andJan'sauthorship, and it is in a legalform, which suggests that the work docu-ments an event-perhaps a foundation willedby the sitter, the deed of which he holds.Erwin Panofsky notes the funereal characterof this work; it certainly must have been a

26. Jan van Eyck'sso-calledTymotheos, dated1432, appeto be a memorializingportraitthe battered nd cracked tonepapetwith inscriptionsn GreekFrench,and Latin may allude tthefutility of attempting o estalish a lastingmemorial.NationGallery,London


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a chiseled Latin inscription that trans-made me, 1446." Theis included asymmetrically at the right, asit were an afterthought. Besides the strong,

light from the right, there is a second

light source within, from the rear left, thatilluminates the sitter's space, which has beendeveloped as the corner of a shallow, confinedinterior. With clear, steel-blue eyes, the sitter,like Jan de Leeuw, engages the viewer with a

28. The exceptionalnatureandtimatequality of both the Portrof Jan de Leeuw (fig. 27) andPetrusChristus'sPortrait of aCarthusian, dated1446, causeto suspect hat the sitterswere cfriendsor relativesof the artistsand that theportraitswere notcommissioned ut ratherweremfor presentation.The Carthusishavedupper ip andhairstyledicatethat he was a lay brothenot a monk. ChristusportrayeCarthusianon at leastone otheoccasion.A smallpainting by hin the StaatlicheMuseen PreusischerKulturbesitz,Berlin-Dahlem, showsJan Vos,priorthe Carthusianmonastery fGenadedal nearBruges) rom1441 to 1450, kneelingbefore hVirgin and Child. 112 x 8 inTheJules BacheCollection,19(49.7.19)


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'Este, the sitterinportraitof about1460 byvan der Weyden,was theon of Lionellod'Este,of Ferrara.He was rearedFlandersat the Burgundianandspentmostof his life ino Dukes Philip the Goodthe Bold. His por-with its aristocraticearingmannered legance,embodiesessenceof courtsociety.Thehe holdsis a princelyat-of power connectedwith theof the tournament-a cen-activityof court ife-and theis possiblya prize. This workamongRogier'sinest and is onethegreatmasterpiecesf theollectionof earlyaintings. 12/2 xin. Bequestof Michael1931. The Friedsam(32.100.43)

steady gaze. His hooded white robe indicatesthat he was a member of the Carthusian order,and he must have been a lay brother becausehis shaved upper lip breaks with the rules ofdress for regular monks. His identity beyondthese facts is unknown. He may not havetaken a vow of poverty and hence might havecommissioned the portrait himself Nonethe-less, the picture is possibly the only knownindependent portrait of a cleric from the fif-teenth century, and the occasion for its execu-tion is a fascinating enigma. One wonderswhat the relationship between artist and sub-ject might have been.The trompe l'oeil fly on the frame's rim is astriking detail. A tour de force of illusion, itcertainly demonstrates the artist's skill at de-ceiving the eye. Panofsky notes that it is partof a tradition dating from antiquity and quotesPhilostratus Lemnius, a writer of the thirdcenturyA. D., who describes apainting in whichthe artist, "enamoredof verisimilitude," so ad-eptly depicted a bee on a flower that one could

not discern whether "an actual bee had bdeceived by the picture or a painted bee ceived the beholder."The fly surely carries moralizing contenwell. Flies are found wherever there is decindeed, during the fifteenth century they wbelieved to emerge spontaneously from Thus, the fly became a symbol of the corrtion of the flesh that is the consequenceOriginal Sin. In the context of portraiture, tmeaning is particularly appropriate-esp

cially in a work such as this one in which artist's skill would seem to have denied deits victory. Just as the fly flaws the otherwpristine environment of this portrait, two finvade the Master of Frankfurt's 1496 portof himself and his wife in the Koninklijk Mseum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp. Onethese flies appears to have landed directlyhis wife's head. There, as here, the fly is unniably intended as a memento mori, a minder of death that counterbalances whotherwise might seem like an unabashed ce

30. The reverseof the PortraitFrancesco d'Este (fig. 29) idefies the sitter.It bearshis coatoarms(the same as hisfather's)supportedby two lynxes (punnon hisfather'sname, Lionello)surmounted y a helm crestedwa blindfoldedynx; a device,votout (To see all), which is evi-dentlyhis own butderivedfromhisfather's, quae vides ne vid(Shut your eyes to what you setwo sets of the lettersm e, anabbreviationor marchio esten(marquisof Este), as Francescwas officially tyledin Flanderintertwinedwith tasseled ordsand his Christianname in Frenthe court anguage. Thephrasenon plus courcelles at the upleft is a lateraddition,the meaof which is not clear.


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bration of the sitters' appearances. The veimeaning is like that of the battered parapeJan van Eyck's Tymotheos.The Metropolitan Museum's Portrait fFrcescod'Esteby Rogier van der Weyden (fig. 2painted about 1460, near the end of the articareer, represents a concept of portraituremost entirely at variance with the Eyckian tdition found in the Portraitofa Carthusian.Tlatter's sense of atmospheric depth, of fosuspended in light and shadow, here gives wto a considerably flattened patterning wcontours silhouetted against a neutral whground. Devoid of moralizing content,portrait celebratespurely secularvalues. Thqualities are in keeping with the social milthat produced the d'Este portrait. Francewas the illegitimate son of Lionello d'Esmarquis of Ferrara.In 1444, at the age of abfifteen, he was sent to the Burgundian courBrussels to be educated. Although he ocsionally returned to Italy, he spent most ofadult life in Flandersin service to the dukesBurgundy, first to Philip the Good, and thto Charles the Bold, with whom he had bereared. It is not surprising to find in Frcesco's portrait the mannered elegance aaloof demeanor typical of court portraiturThe light field of this picture is unusual aunique among Rogier's surviving portraitsis not without precedent, however, if the ptrait of Barthelemy Alatruye [fig. 24] ifaithful reflection of Campin's original.) Phaps white held special significance for theter, whose father, it is said, chose the colorshis clothes according to the positions ofplanets and the day of the week. The hammand ring Francesco holds allude to court ciety. The hammer is a princely attributepower connected with the rituals of the tonament-a central activity of court life-anthe ring is possibly a prize.In the surviving half-length independportraits by Campin, van Eyck, and van Weyden, the sitters are customarily repsented against a neutral, flat ground, usuadark. Evidently it was considered approprto isolate the figure of an independent portin an indeterminate space. The nonspecificcale lends these portraits a timeless univsality that is complemented by the tranqand static expressions of the sitters. Inde

only known fifteenth-centurbook is a collectionand Italian love songs mabetween 1460 aind 147dejean de MontchenuNationale, Paris (2973). However, a prayerb,just as well have a heart stof passionate devotionEucharist scene in the backgrthe Museum's portrait supporinterpretation. Left: 84 x 5of Mary Stillman Harkn(50.145.27). Right: NationalLondon. Far right: detail ofscene, Museum voor Schi

Antwerptheir faces are nearly expressionless. This cvention must have been one of choice, forwe have seen in their full-length donor p: :


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these artists were capable of placing in-in spatially developed environments.portraits by Petrus Christus,Portrait of a Carthusian, are the ear-surviving in which the sitter is found in

space. Rogier's late Portraitofste s evidence of that artist'sreluc-the older tradition.

In a nearly contemporary work, DiericPortraitof a Man (fig. 31), dated 1462,much further a younger artist hastoward creating a temporal environmenthis subject. Here, as in portraits by Rogier,a strong influence on Bouts, thehands are stacked upon the lower edgeframe; but, as in Christus's Carthusian,man is seen in the corner of a room. Mosta window has been introduced in

wall, permitting a view onto an idyllicSunlight from the window batheswall, throwing the chiseled date into

and brightly illuminating the far side ofman's profile.

Although the conservative portrait formulaof a sitter against a dark field would endurewell into the sixteenth century, as the Mu-seum's Portraitof a Man by Jan Gossart (seep. 48) attests, the direction indicated byBouts's 1462 portrait was the way of the fu-ture. The possibilities of its format were de-veloped to great effect in a sizable group ofportraits by Hans Memling dating from thelate 1460s through the 1480s. Memling was anartist who evidently enjoyed particularsuccessas a portraitist, and his painting of about 1475in the Lehman Collection (fig. 32) serves wellto demonstrate his charm as a portrait painter.Far from a penetrating examination of charac-ter, the picture presents an attractive, self-possessed young man. Where a modestlyshuttered window sufficed in Bouts's portraitto open up the sitter'sspace, here a loggia withmarble columns opens onto a sunny, tranquilvista. The harmonious relationship betweenthis calm natural environment and the equallycalm individual must have been as appealing

32. In Hans Memling'sPortraof a Young Man of about147thesitter'senvironment ontribto thepicture'spsychologicalappeal as muchas, if not more hthe man'scountenance.The suntranquil andscapeharmonizeswith the mentalcomposure f thsitter,and the eleganceof the mble columnsenhances he nobleeffecthe presumablydesired.Thportraithad beencrudely ransformedinto an image of SaintSebastianby the additionsof anarrowand a halo, removed n1912, tracesof which are still vible. Portraits t the MuseumbyPetrusChristus(figs. 6, 28) anGerardDavid (fig. 20) have udergone imilartransformation15/4x 111/8n. Robert LehmanCollection,1975 (1975.1.112)

Dieric Bouts'sPortrait of ain London,dated1462, iscitedas the earliestexistinglemishportraitthatthe sitterin a roomwith aopeningontoa landscape,this arrangementhouldnot bes the artist's nvention.ew fifteenth-century lemishsurvive (an optimisticmightbe twentyto thirtyor us to makesuchannstead,the workbe considereds represen-of current rtisticashions.Gallery,London


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44~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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33, 34. The MetropolitanMu-seum's ortraitof a WomanbQuentinMassys (opposite) s oof a pair of husband ndwife. Tman'sportrait (left), in a Swissprivatecollection, s treated dencally,with the sitter viewedbeha repoussoir rchcomposed f twmarblecolumns,a stonelintel, aan acanthus-leaf ridge.The maholdsprayerbeadsand the woma prayerbook-attributes of thefaith. The wife appears o havepausedfromherreading n a momentof contemplation.The senof suspended ctionwas a recendevelopmentn Flemishpor-traiture,one with whichMassymay be credited.Left: SchlossAu, Switzerland,CollectionofE. von Schulthess.Opposite:19x 17 in. Bequestof MichaelFriedsam,1931. The FriedsamCollection(32.100.47)

contemporary patrons as it is today;it much more fully in nu-portraits in which the sitters are

completely out of doors.In this picture the columns, like the fur-jeweled rings, contribute to anlofty surrounding, aggrandizing

appearanceand indicating his desiresocial prominence. Such decorous col-are the first signs of a tradition that canthrough to the portraits of van DyckGainsborough and to the studio props of

photography.A similar use of more ornate columns isin the Museum's arresting Portraitof afig. 34) by Quentin Massys. The col-part of an arch that acts as aetween the viewer and the pictorial

space. The arrangement derives ultimatelyfrom the one seen first in Christus'sPortrait faCarthusianand reflects a similar regard by theartist for the framing device. In Massys's por-trait, however, the style of the architecturalmotif, with its acanthus-leaf bridge, has beenbrought up to date, reflecting the recent influ-ence in Flanders of Italianate designs. Theframing arch made possible the recognition ofthis work as one of a pair of portraits of manand wife. The husband's portrait (fig. 33), ina Swiss private collection, is treated identical-ly, so that when the paintings arejuxtaposed,the sitters appear to be behind a continuousloggia.The dating of portraits by Massys is prob-lematic; the most that can be said is that thesewere painted in the second decade of the six-


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teenth century. The couple's identity is un-known, but they were probably members ofAntwerp's wealthy bourgeoisie. The dualityof motivation we observed in donors' portraitsis found again here, where we perceive thecouple's concern for recording both their pietyand their wealth: the man holds prayer beadsand the woman a book of hours. The prayerbook is ornamented with gilded margins con-taining naturalistic floral decoration in thestyle of the workshop of Simon Bening, theleading sixteenth-century Bruges manuscriptilluminator. So precious an object is an indica-tion of not only the sitter's avowed faith, butalso her social position. It recalls the oft-quoted verse of Eustache Deschamps, who, atthe end of the fourteenth century, criticizedwhat had by then already become a fashion-able prerequisiteof women with social preten-sions:

A Book of Hours, too, must be mineWhere subtle workmanship will shine,Of gold and azure, rich and smart,Arranged and painted with great art,Covered with fine brocade of gold;And there must be, so as to holdThe pages closed, two golden clasps.

The sitter'sbook, along with her rings and herhusband's rich fur collar, enhances the couple'sprestige in the same way as the elaborate col-umns. Yet it is a mistake to read into thewoman's expression, as has been done, a senseof vain hypocrisy. Although she turns awayfrom the prayer book, as if ignoring it, heraction might just as well be one of momentarycontemplation. The portrait is among the ear-liest surviving in which an artist has captureda sense of arrestedmovement, and it is equallydistinguished for its unusual yet masterfullymodeled full-face presentation.Another new, somewhat related departurein portraiture is found in the Metropolitan'sMan WeighingGold (fig. 35). This is one of astylistically cohesive group of paintings, all ofundocumented authorship, that show the pro-nounced influence of GerardDavid and hencehave been attributed to Adriaen Isenbrant,who was reported in the eighteenth centuryto have emerged from David's workshop.Only one of these paintings is dated, the

In van Eyck'sJan deLeeuw (fig. 27), theter holds a ring as an attribute of the gsmith's profession. Here, however, the scand coins seem to function less as attriband more as an integral part of the sitter'tion. As in Massys's Portraitof a Woman,is a heightened sense of suspended movemThe Man WeighingGold appears to be onthe earliest surviving occupational portrin which the sitter is shown actually workin his professional environment. His acwould seem to indicate that he is a mochanger, a banker, or a merchant. Nevertless, we should not jump to conclusions;fore Francesco d'Este's portrait was identifthat picture also was called Portraitof a Gsmith, a misinterpretation of his hammerring. It is possible that the act of weighcoins alludes both to the man's professionto his contemplation of higher values.scales could not have failed to remind contporary viewers of Saint Michael's on Jument Day. It seems particularly appropriathe mentality of an early Flemish portraand his patron to regard the activity herweighing in the balance worldly against situal values.

This picture has been heavily reworkedthe artist, and its dimensions have beentered. Originally, the man held the scales inright hand and rested his left on the table;head was shown in near profile, and hislapels were much wider. Moreover, stripsinches wide have been added to both sidethe panel by someone other than the arDisregarding these accretions, its dimensiare 20 by 8/2 inches, a 5:2 ratio of heighwidth surprising in its verticality. The uratio for independent portraits is 5:4, andclosest parallel is the 5:3 ratio of van EyTymotheos.Given the sitter'slack of devotioattitude, it is highly improbable that theture was one wing of a triptych with a cenreligious subject. It is possible that it formthe right half of a portrait diptych but unlikthat a portrait of the man's wife formed left half, for in paired portraits of couples,arrangement is usually just the opposite. Phaps this portrait was paired with one ocolleague or friend, like Quentin Massys'snowned "Friendship Diptych" of 1518,Portrait of Paulus de Nigro of 1518 in theGroeningemuseum, Bruges, but it is evidentfrom that work that the Museum's picturemust have been painted about the same time.

vided between Hampton Court and LongfCastle, which pairs portraits of Erasmus Pieter Gillis-works that share numerousmal qualities with Isenbrant'sportrait.

about1518, AdriaenMan Weighing Goldpossibly one of the earliestsur-occupational ortraits,indepicted ngagedThe schemeof suchpor-evidently evolvedfromotherofpainting, as thepose ofman identifiedas Saint Eligiuspaintingof 1449Petrus Christus(fig. 7) pre-that of the sitter in thisThe nearly identicalac-of thatfigure and of theheremay have related ignifi-Stripshave beenadded oby someoneotherthan the20 x 12 in. Addedstripssides, each134 in. BequestMichaelFriedsam,1931. TheCollection(32.100.36)


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Painted by Jan Gossart,probably during the firsthalf of the 1520s-about thesame time as the model forthe Museum's VirginandChild (fig. 11), this is one ofthe latest portraits consid-ered here, although itsformat is remarkably old-fashioned. It is signed onthe scroll held by the sitter:"J[o]annesmalbodiuspingeba[t]." Malbodius sLatin for "of Maubeuge,"the artist'sbirthplace inHainaut, whence he is alsocalled Mabuse.Gossart is probably the"Jennynvan Henegouwe"(ean from Hainaut) whoentered the Antwerp paint-ers' guild in 1503. From1508 he served primarily ascourt painter to Philip ofBurgundy, bastard son ofDuke Philip the Good, whobecame Prince Bishop ofUtrecht in 1517.He workedfor Philip in Rome, Mid-delburg, and Utrecht, andUossart served rnlllp sgrandnephew Adolf ofBurgundy in Middelburg.He worked intermittentlyfor, among others, CharlesV in Brussels, Margaret ofAustria in Mechelen, the ex-iled Christian II of Denmarkin Middelburg and Ghent,and Jean Carondolet inBruges and Mechelen.Because of the hat orna-ment with the monogramIM-initials that could standfor "Ioannes Malbodius"-the painting was oncethought to be a self-portrait.However, the sitter bears lit-tle resemblance to engravedportraits of Gossart, and theinitials are much more likelyan abbreviation for the com-mon Christian invocation"IhesusMaria."

Jan Gossart was a centralparticipant in the Eyckianresurgence that occurred in

ings heand arcEyck'sally hecomposconservsurvival of


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Hal f L engt h D e v o t i o n a l P o r t r a i t s

he early Flemish portraits at the Museumthat remain to be considered appearat firstto be independent portraits but were, infact, parts of diptychs or triptychs that in-cluded a religious subject, usually a half-length Virgin and Child. Such works-theMuseum's Portraitof a Man by Hugo van derGoes (see p. 62), for instance-can be recog-nized by the sitter's devotional attitude, withhands clasped in prayer. Whereas half-lengthindependent and full-length donor portraitswere as common in Italy as in Flandersduringthe fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, half-length devotional portraits were peculiar tonorthern Europe. Since Hulin de Loo's recon-struction in 1923/24 of the earliest survivingdiptych of this type, Rogier van der Weyden'sVirginand Child withJean Grosof about 1450(figs. 36, 37), the form has been presumed tohave been an invention of that artist. Recently,it has been observed, however, that invento-ries of 1404 and 1420 mention a half-lengthdiptych, now lost, showing the Virgin andChild adored by Philip the Bold, first duke ofBurgundy, and his son and successor,John theFearless; evidently the form was known atleast as early as about 1400. Nevertheless,Rogier may have been responsible for popu-larizing it around mid-century.The conceptual appealof the arrangementisapparent. The image of the Virgin and Childin the Gros Diptych derives from Rogier'sSaint LukeDrawingthe Virgin fig. 2). The dip-tych pairs an iconic representation of theVirgin-her portrait by Saint Luke, as itwere-with a portrait of the pious patron.The image of the Virgin itself might have beenan object of the patron's personal devotions.By combining it with the patron'sportrait, theartisthas made that personal devotion an inte-gral part of the image.

The arrangement evolved from two ptorial traditions. First, the pairing of hlength male and female figures parallels ptrait diptychs of married couples, althouhere the male patron cedes the position of pcedence, at the left, to the Virgin. Second,half-length depiction of one figure in supplition to another is related to that of Christ athe praying Virgin. Robert Campin's pictof about 1435 (fig. 38) is a late reflection of tcompositional type. Deriving ultimately frByzantine icons, the scheme was first intduced in northern Europe at the beginningthe fourteenth century through the intermeary of trecento Italian models. In the oltype, represented by Campin's picture,Virgin intercedes on behalf of all mankipraying for Christ's mercy on Judgment DIn the later permutation of the scheme, rresented by Rogier's diptych, the individprays on his own behalf to the Virgin for intercession.

Little is known about the original destitions of diptychs and triptychs with hlength compositions, including those wportraits, but their intimate presentationpersonal scale suggest that they were intendfor private family chapels and domestic ratthan public altars. The only half-lenfifteenth-century Flemish triptych whoriginal destination is known, Rogier vanWeyden'sJean BraqueTriptych of about 14in the Louvre, was destined for the patroresidence and remained in that family's psession until 1586. Memling's Marten vNieuwenhove Diptych of 1487 (fig. 39)longed to the Nieuwenhove family until 16indicating that it, too, had not been part oreligious donation. In this work, the formthe devotional portrait diptych finds its higest level of realization. Memling abandon


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37. The Virginand ChildJeanGros,painted yvan der Weyden boutis the earliest urviving half-devotional ortraitdiptych,theform was not Rogier's n-He may,nonetheless,beenlargelyresponsibleorpopularityafterthemiddleofifteenthcentury.The sitteris identifiedby theeverse,whichdisplayscoatof arms,the initialsa pulley emblem,and the de-GRACE A DIEU (Thanks toThe emblemanddeviceareon the reverseof theand Child. Jean Gros was1450 secretaryo Philip thedukeof Burgundy.He ac-reatwealthand built ina magnificent ouse thatHe died in 1484. Left:desBeaux-Arts, Tournai.Art Instituteof Chicago,MartinA. Ryerson33.1051)

the dark neutral background favored byRogier and developed instead a pictorial spaceof consummate illusion. The Virgin and vanNieuwenhove occupy a single interior thatunites the two panels. The observer's viewonto their space is through two separateaper-tures defined by the frame, as the reflection inthe mirror behind the Virgin makes clear. Itshows the Virgin and Marten, each silhouet-ted against a bright opening-windows ontoour space. Ledges, upon which the Virginholds the Child and the sitter rests his prayerbook, mark the transition between real andpictorial space.

Although the Virgin and patron are com-bined in one illusionistic space, the individualpanels present differing spatial impressions, inkeeping with the disparatenature of their sub-jects. In the temporal half, the raked-angleview of the side wall sets the eye in motion,directing it, as do the sitter's glance and three-quarter profile, to the left. In the sacred half,the frontal view of the Virgin and of the rearwall creates an iconic, symmetrical composi-tion appropriate to the holy subject.

The tranquil landscape glimpsed throthe window behind the Virgin is nonspecbut that behind the sitter is topographishowing the footbridge and tower (Poetoren) of the Minnewater district in BruThe sitter, it is recalled, was the brother-in-of Anna van Nieuwenhove, whose epit(fig. 17) displays in the background the samonuments. The neighborhood is evideone with which the Nieuwenhove familyassociated.In 1902 the eminent cultural historian AWarburg observed that Italian patrons mhave perceived Flemish portraits as havthe nearly magical powers of votive ages. Fifteenth-century Florentine churcabounded in wax effigies, often dressedthe donors' own clothes. The surrogate pence implicit in these ex-voto figures mhave been ascribed as well to painted doportraits, which create an everlasting picrial reality whereby patron and divinityinexorably linked.One Italian family, the Portinari, were pticularly attuned to the capabilities of Flem


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as their repeated patronage attests.prominent of the Portinari, Tom-was from 1465 until 1480 copartnerandof the Bruges branch of the Medicia fault, he ingratiatedof Burgundy, furnish-extensive loans that financed their militaryHe became a counselor to PhilipGood, whose successor, Charles the Bold,

Although Portinariposition, his loans to

Burgundian court proved to be disastrous.in 1477 at the battle ofhe was deeply in debt to the MediciAfter bailing out the branch with largethe Medici forced Portinari in 1480

responsibility for the Brugessevering their association with it. In aof 1479, Lorenzo the Magnifi-

charged that Portinari "in order toand make himself im-did not care whether it was at ourPortinari spent the rest of his lifeto recover his losses.

At the peak of his power, in 1470, PortinariMariaBaroncelli, who came from an-

other prominent Florentine family of finan-ciers. At the time of their marriage, Maria wasfourteen or fifteen years old, Tommaso aboutforty-two. It must have been in that year orthe following that Tommaso commissionedfrom Hans Memling a half-length devotionaltriptych, of which only the portrait wings(figs. 40, 41), at the Metropolitan Museum,survive. Considering the patron's prestige, itis not surprising that these portraits areamongthe artist's most finely executed. Happily, theyare also two of the best preserved, althoughthe black-on-black pattern of Portinari's silkdamask jacket has become nearly invisible.The precision with which Memling has artic-ulated Tommaso's features-recording evenwhat appears to be a scar on his chin-is un-surpassedin the artist'soeuvre, and he has lav-ished equal attention on the detail of Maria'senameled gold necklace set with sparklingstones and lustrous pearls.

The heads are set against a somber, darkground, but Memling has introduced into thisconservative format simulated stone moldingsthat box in and define the pictorial field. Likethe simulated frame in the Portraitofa Carthu-

38. Iconicdepictions f Christ wthepraying Virgin,like this onabout 1435 by RobertCampinprefigure he arrangement f detionaldiptychs hatpair a half-length Virginand Child with aportraitof a supplicant ndividuJohn G. JohnsonCollection,Philadelphia


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ortrait's origunction areAny estima

This painting is generallysaid to be one of but two"independent" portraits se-curely attributable to DiericBouts; the other is the por-trait dated 1462 (fig. 31).This is perhaps bettertermed a single portrait be-cause the fingertips joined in

has been trimmed withinthe original painted surfaceand set into an oak panel sothat this does not appear tobe a fragment; but, in fact,other paintmale sitter

te


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(fig. 28), these moldings seem to be anof the actual frame. However, whereclearly positioned in a spacethe simulated frame, here the sitters areThe picture plane has become ashallow recess before which they appear

project. As we have already seen, Jan Gos-employs the same device in his Virgin(fig. 11). The lost center panel of thetriptych-probably a half-length

and Child as well-was presumablyin similar fashion.Memling portrayed Tommaso and Mariaon at least one other occasion. Their

donor portraits appear at the lowerand right corners of a small panel in Turin42) that depicts Christ's Passion. It hassuggested, quite plausibly, that becausedonors are unaccompanied by any off-the picture must have been painted

1470, the year of their marriage,September 15, 1471, the birth date of theirchild, Margherita. Had the picture beenlater, she probably would have beenat prayer by her mother's side, just asdonor's son appears in a work by Memling

very similar to this one, the so-called SevenJoys of Mary in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

Although the donors' figures in Memling'sPassion of Christ are only four inches high, theyare unmistakably recognizable as Tommasoand Maria Portinari (figs. 43, 44). Indeed, itwas by comparison to the Museum's picturesthat the donors in the Turin Passion were iden-tified. The portrayals, with the heads viewedfrom precisely the same angles, are so similarthat one pair seems to have served as themodel for the other. Obviously, the large, de-tailed portraits in New York would be pri-mary. That they may have been copied for thesmaller donor portraits is consistent withwhat we know of fifteenth-century portrait-painting practice, and the likelihood is notdiscounted by the absence of Maria's magnifi-cent necklace in the Passion. It may have beenomitted because of the figure's small scale or,more probably, because it was deemed inap-propriately ostentatious attire in which to wit-ness Christ's suffering on the road to Calvary.If the Museum's portraits preceded those inthe Turin Passion, they must date as well from1470 or 1471.

39. Memling'sVirgin andChild with Marten vanNieuwenhove is a consummexpressionof spatial illusion thafully integrateshe rame andunites thepatron'sportraitand tdevotionalimage.Neverthelessmaintainsproprietyby using vaing perspectives o differentiateVirgin's acred ealm rom the ster'stemporal nvironment.Theimageof Saint Martindividingcloak at the rightestablishes hespiritualpresenceof the sitter'sptron saint withoutdisturbinghepainting'snaturalness