210 Book review Painting around 1400 and the road to van Eyck: notes on an exhibition and a catalogue* Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam staged an exhibition from 13 October 2012 to 10 February 2013 under the lapidary title The road to van Eyck. The two curators and lead authors of the catalogue, Friso Lammertse and Stephan Kemperdick, set out to explore Jan van Eyck’s innovations on the one hand and to reveal the roots of his art on the other. The result was a simply superb exhibition in which the museum could include two highlights from its own collection: the recently restored Eyckian fragment with the three Marys at the empty tomb and the so-called Norfolk triptych. Grouped around this core were many loans, including seven paintings from Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie. In addition to a choice selection of splendid pictures from the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the ifteenth centuries there were illuminated manuscripts, drawings, a few sculptures and rare pieces of precious metalwork. The fruits of all the preparations are presented in a ine catalogue which has fortunately remained within bounds as regards size and weight.1 It contains generally lucid and concise entries on the works displayed, preceded by several introductory essays, of which those by the curators are the most important: “The road to Van Eyck” (pp. 11–19) and “Painting around 1400 and Jan van Eyck’s early work” (pp. 89–108). Sandwiched between them are several shorter contributions of varying quality on all sorts of related subjects. Rozanne de Bruijne and Nadja Garthof discuss towns, monasteries and the court as centers of artistic production. This is followed by introductions on painting in various regions of northwestern Europe: somewhat rhapsodic notes on Utrecht and Holland by Anne-Maria van Egmond, and more informative pieces about the southern Netherlands (Cyriel Stroo), Paris and Burgundy (Friso Lammertse) and Cologne and western Germany (Katrin Dyballa). Claire Guinomet’s piece on Italian inluences gets bogged down in generalities. The next cluster examines diferent art forms in their relationship to van Eyck: book illumination and the early years of van Eyck’s output (Joris Corin Heyder), drawing prior to van Eyck (Guido Messling) and portraiture (Bart Fransen). Stephan Kemperdick discusses copies after van Eyck and his predecessors. Frits Scholten supplies a handy introduction to sculpture and wood and ivory carving in the Burgundian Netherlands in 1380–1450, and Till-Holger Borchert surveys van Eyck’s life on the evidence of the documents. * The translation from the Dutch is by Michael Hoyle. 1 S. Kemperdick and F. Lammertse, exhib. cat. The road to van Eyck, In this article I will be making a few comments about some general concepts underlying the exhibition. I will also examine several of the attributions, ending with van Eyck himself and the ‘road’ that supposedly leads to him. types of object It is perhaps inevitable that an exhibition like this approaches its subject from the viewpoint of ‘painting’, and more speciically of ‘old masters’. A strictly historical approach, though, would have to allow for the fact that the craft of painting at the end of the middle ages covered far more than ‘art’ alone, ranging from the colorful inish (including gilding) of interiors and sculptures, the decoration of banners, shields, containers and the like, to what we would now call ‘true’ painting. Jan van Eyck’s ‘revolution’ did not change that in the slightest. ‘True’ painting cannot be equated with the general category of the easel picture; it is only a slight exaggeration to say that that did not even exist yet. Museums have gradually become aware of the object nature of early painting, and relect that in their presentations. In this exhibition, for example, the museum took the trouble to display several double-sided panels so that both front and back were visible. All the same, the centuriesold tradition of the picture gallery still dictates that late medieval panels are hung on the wall like easel paintings, even if they have painted backs. The same applies to fragments, which are normally displayed fully framed as if they were complete, selfcontained works. The aesthetic presentation still outweighs the archaeological. The object shapes of paintings from around 1400 are remarkably varied. That becomes apparent when one tries to divide the objects in this show into categories. It is more dificult than it looks, not so much because some authors of the catalogue entries do not appear to be bothered by the problem but more because in many cases our vocabulary is not up to the task of classifying object types. The classiication ‘easel picture’ certainly does not apply to the many small panels with religious scenes, since their backs are often decorated, which rules out permanent display on a wall or partition. The decoration can range from imitations of stone surfaces to heraldic devices or religious symbols, such as the three nails from the Cross set within the crown of thorns on the back of the so-called Small round Pietà in the Louvre (cat. nr. 7). One of the entries (cat. nr. 4) gives the impression that marbling was rare in the north, but in their introductory essay on Jan van Eyck and painting around 1400, Kemperdick and Lammertse are correct when they say that that was far from being the case (pp. 91–92). It was, in fact, a pan-European phenomenon, the earliest examples of which date from the second half of the thirteenth century in Italy.2 Rotterdam (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen) 2012 (also published in Dutch under the title De weg naar van Eyck). 211 The decoration on the backs of these paintings is often poorly preserved or has vanished altogether, and unfortunately even the entries in this catalogue do not systematically mention whether there is or was such a decoration. Nor, for that matter, are they systematic in stating whether the present frame is original. The broad category of small paintings with religious scenes comprises single works, diptychs, triptychs and polyptychs. The tondi make up a special subcategory within the group of single works (cat. nrs. 7, 11, 13), and are regularly listed as such in contemporary inventories. A number of small, upright, rectangular panels with religious subjects would also have been conceived as autonomous pieces. Strikingly, several of them have integral frames, the inest example being the openwork foliate decoration of the small Madonna and Child in the Frick Collection (cat. nr. 12). Other self-contained panels are the almost square Lamen­ tation of Christ with a Carthusian monk in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (cat. nr. 10), the Holy Family in Berlin (cat. nr. 38), and Jan van Eyck’s St Barbara in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp (cat. nr. 85). All three are still in their original frames, none of which bears traces of hinging. It is true that the Cruciixion from the workshop of Jean de Beaumetz in the Louvre (cat. nr. 5) has lost its original frame, but exceptionally the commission is documented. It and a similar work in the Cleveland Museum of Art, which was not in the exhibition, are all that remains of a set of devotional panels that were intended for the Carthusians of Champmol.3 The Cruciixion from the Stiftung Sammlung E.G. Bührle in Zürich (cat. nr. 41) and the Eyckian Cruciixion in Berlin (cat. nr. 81) no longer have their original frames, and the latter was even transferred to canvas recently.4 Like Jean de Beaumetz’s Cruciixion for Champmol, these works would also have been independent panels, but in the absence of the frames that must remain a hypothesis. The small Washington panel with the pregnant Virgin accompanied by a very grumpy-looking Joseph and two small girls has an arched top (cat. nr. 17; ig. 4). Since the Virgin is turned to the left one would expect to see a pendant on that side, but it seems that there are no remnants of any hinges on the original frame (unfortunately not illustrated in the catalogue), which indicates that this panel, too, is a self-contained work, although it is not clear what its function might have been. The iconography is also unusual, although the two girls on the right are not as odd as they were made out to be in the past. They are the temple virgins whom Mary was allowed to take with her to Nazareth to keep her company after her marriage to Joseph. Their number varies in the apocryphal literature about the Virgin, but they are neutrally put at ‘several’ in La saincte vie de Nostre Dame, which was written around 1400 on commission for Jean de Berry.5 It is stated that the Quatrefoil of the Entombment in Ghent (cat. nr. 55) may have been part of a small triumphal or processional cross, but it seems more likely to me that it was a work in its own right. The throne of mercy triptych in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (not in the exhibition) has a similar quatrefoil in the center.6 The Westphalian Madonna of c. 1390 in Berlin is another typological problem (cat. nr. 4). It is suggested in the catalogue that it is the left wing of a diptych, but there are no traces of hinges, and at 31.6 × 19.3 cm it seems a little too tall and narrow to have been part of a diptych. The only other panel in the show that is said to be part of a diptych is the Annunciation by the Master of the Heiligenkreuz in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum (cat. nr. 14). It makes a pair with the Mystic marriage of St Catherine in the same museum, which was not in the exhibition. Running behind the Annunciation scene is a wall behind which two saints are looking to the right. The wall extends into the Mystic marriage, where once again two saints look on, in this case Dorothy and Barbara. The background consists of gold leaf. The reverses are decorated with a Virgin and Child and St Dorothy against neutral blue backgrounds, which suggests that they are outside surfaces. That kind of exterior decoration is a little unusual for a diptych, as is the large size of the panels (71.5 × 43.7 cm),7 which consequently look more like the wings of a 2 V.M. Schmidt, Painted piety: panel paintings for personal devotion in Tuscany, 1250–1400, Florence 2005, pp. 44–58. 3 C. Sterling, “Oeuvres retrouvées de Jean de Beaumetz, peintre de Philippe le Hardi,” Miscellanea Erwin Panofsky (Bulletin Musées Royaux des Beaux­Arts 4 [1955], nrs. 1–3), pp. 57–81. A third Cruciixion panel of roughly the same size with a Carthusian in Dijon (Musée des BeauxArts) is currently dated to the 1430s; see E. Antoine (ed.), exhib. cat. Art from the court of Burgundy: the patronage of Philip the Bold and John the Fear­ less 1364–1419, Dijon (Musée des Beaux-Arts), Cleveland (Cleveland Museum of Art) & Paris 2004, pp. 259–60, cat. nr. 99. The model for Christ on the Cross, which was already archaic at the time, came from Jean de Beaumetz. This panel may have been overpainted, and could originally have been part of the late fourteenth-century set. 4 Actually, the measurements of 43 × 26 cm given in the catalogue are not correct. When I raised this point with him Stephan Kemperdick told me that they are actually 44.1 × 30.1 cm, including the present edge, which is paper pasted onto a strip of canvas. 5 See M. Meiss and E.H. Beatson (eds.), La vie de nostre benoit Sau­ veur Ihesuscrist & La saincte vie de Nostre Dame, translatee a la requeste de tres hault et puissant prince Iehan, duc de Berry, New York 1977, p. 148: “La doulce Vierge Marie em[m]ena avecques soy aucunes vierges du temple, pour luy donner solas en Nazareth.” The Golden legend says that there were seven girls, while the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew puts their number at ive. 6 On the strange shape of this work see also J.-C. Klamt, “The Trin­ ity triptych in Berlin: a product of the International Style,” in Italy and the Low Countries — artistic relations: the ifteenth century. Proceedings of the symposium held at Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, 14 March 1994, Florence 1999, pp. 9–20. 7 There is a lot of comparative material in the ever-useful disser- 212 book review 1 Reconstruction of the Eyckian Cruciixion and Last Judgment in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, as the wings of an arbitrarily chosen shrine from c. 1470. Reconstruction by Stephan Kemperdick and Friso Lammertse triptych, probably one with a painted central section. If that is the case, the wall in the background of the wings would also have run across the central scene. The double-sided panel with Canon Pierre de Wissant as the donor (cat. nr. 15; Laon, Musée d’Art et d’Archéologie) was undoubtedly a shutter originally, for it still bears traces of the fastenings. What the center section was is anyone’s guess; it could even have been a niche in a wall. The Four scenes from the life of the Virgin in a private collection (cat. nr. 62) also belonged to wings originally. Mention could also be made of the Annun­ ciation by Jan van Eyck in Washington (cat. nr. 83). The suggestion that it was the left shutter of a triptych is very sound. It has the same proportions as the Cruciixion and the Last Judgment in the Metropolitan Museum in New York, which have now been united into a diptych. Kemperdick and Lammertse say in their second essay that those panels, too, were the wings of a triptych (pp. 105–06). Their reconstruction shows “an arbitrarily chosen shrine from c. 1470” as the central section (ig. 1), which makes it very clear that such a centerpiece did not necessarily have to be a painted panel. In other words, what we commonly call a triptych is merely a collective term for all kinds of object forms, and on top of that it says nothing about the art form. The exhibition contained different kinds of complete, painted triptychs. The one that was probably executed in Bruges and is now in a private Italian collection (cat. nr. 39) and a triptych with another Carthusian in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum (cat. nr. 60) are examples of triptychs with a horizontal centerpiece. It is because of that oblong format that the well-known Little garden of Paradise from Frankfurt (cat. nr. 37) also looks like the center section of a triptych, although the lack of the original frame makes that impossible to prove.8 The same may also be true of the panel with The adora­ tion of the Magi from the Galleria Sabauda in Turin (cat. nr. 72). Small triptychs with an upright center section include those from The Art Institute of Chicago (cat. nr. 53) and Schwerin, which are southern Netherlandish in origin, possibly from Bru- tation by W. Kermer, Studien zum Diptychon in der sakralen Malerei von den Anfängen bis zur Mitte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, Tübingen 1967. Signiicantly, he does not mention the Vienna ‘diptych.’ 8 The argument in B. Brinkmann and S. Kemperdick, Deutsche Gemälde im Städel 1300–1500, Mainz 2002, p. 103, that wings suppos- edly “would not really it in with the composition, especially not with the wall closing of the scene on the left” (“kaum mit der Komposition, vor allem der links abschließenden Mauer, zu vereinbaren”) does not strike me as being conclusive. Painting around 1400 and the road to van Eyck 213 2 The Antwerp­Baltimore quadriptych in unfolded position. Reconstruction by Hélène Verougstraete ges (cat. nrs. 56–57). The Adoration of the Magi panel from the same artistic milieu in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum is probably the centerpiece of such a triptych (cat. nr. 54). The triptych by the Veronica Master in a private collection has an upright, gabled central panel, as well as the unusual feature of Christ carrying the Cross on the outer wings (cat. nr. 29). Finally, the inverted T shape of the central compartment makes the Norfolk triptych look like a miniature retable (cat. nr. 33). There is a belief that the superb tabernacle in the Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp (cat. nr. 28) was a ‘tower altarpiece’, or more speciically the crowning element of a retable. Contemporary depictions like Rogier van der Weyden’s famous Seven sacraments triptych (Antwerp, Royal Museum of Fine Arts) are evidence that retables could have that kind of superstructure, but Till-Holger Borchert is right to note in the catalogue entry that the reined and detailed framing elements and the scale of the painted scenes on the wings suggest that the object was meant to be seen from close at hand. In my view this precious object can best be regarded as a painted variant of similar objects in precious metal, such as the Paris tabernacle of c. 1325–40 in the Museo Poldi Pezzoli in Milan.9 From a typological point of view the Antwerp­Baltimore quadriptych (cat. nr. 1), so called after its two present locations, Museum Mayer van den Bergh and the Walters Art Museum, is not as rare as is often assumed (in this exhibition too). Several such works are mentioned in contemporary inventories, and there are earlier examples in Italian and Catalan painting.10 The polyptych has been reconstructed as a kind of leporello, and that seems to be an eminently logical proposal.11 Some years ago, however, Hélène Verougstraete came up with another reconstruction in which the right side of the second panel and the left side of the third were given additional strips of wood attached to each other with clumsy protruding hinges (ig. 2).12 A complete quadriptych with the original frames and hinges (simple wire hinges and not plate ones) demonstrates that there is a simpler solution (ig. 3). The added strips should be thicker than the panels so that the entire ensemble can be folded together in two stages like a double diptych.13 One wonders, though, whether the Antwerp­Baltimore quadriptych was originally constructed like that. It turns out that the two panels in the middle were joined with dowels, so were immovable relative to each other. Interestingly, remnants of dowels have also been found in Pietro Lorenzetti’s Adoration of the Magi in the Louvre, which led me to suggest that it should be regarded as part of a polyptych. But whether those dowels, like those in the Antwerp­Baltimore quadriptych, are original, is another matter.14 Given the example of the Antwerp­Baltimore quadriptych, it is possible that the small Entombment in the Louvre can also be re- 9 M.-M. Gauthier, Émaux du moyen âge occidental, Fribourg 1972, p. 404, cat. nr. 207. 10 V.M. Schmidt, “Portable polyptychs with narrative scenes: fourteenth-century de luxe objects between Italian panel painting and French arts somptuaires,” in idem (ed.), Italian panel painting in the Due­ cento and Trecento, Washington 2002, pp. 395–425; idem, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 281–321. 11 H.M.J. Nieuwdorp, “Het pre-eyckiaanse vierluik AntwerpenBaltimore: onderzoek naar de oorspronkelijke vorm en functie,” Bul­ letin Institut Royal du patrimoine artistique / Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium 20 (1984–85), pp. 70–85; idem, “The Antwerp-Baltimore polyptych: a portable altarpiece belonging to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy,” in H. van Os, The art of devotion in the late Middle ages in Europe 1300–1500, London 1994, pp. 137–50; H. Mund, C. Stroo and N. Goetghebeur, The Mayer van den Bergh Museum Antwerp, Brussels 2003, pp. 254–87. 12 H. Verougstraete, “Diptychs with instructions for use,” in J.O. Hand and R. Spronk (eds.), Essays in context: unfolding the Netherlandish diptych, Cambridge (Mass.) 2006, pp. 156–71, esp. pp. 167–69, and p. 241, pl. 10. 13 See Schmidt, op. cit. (note 10), p. 409 and ig. 28, and idem, op. cit. (note 2), p. 292 and p. 307, ig. 213. 14 Schmidt, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 289 and 293. 214 book review 3 Attributed to Arnau Bassa, Quadriptych with scenes from the life of Christ, the life of the Virgin, and saints, c. 1345–50. New York, Morgan Library & Museum garded as part of such an ensemble (cat. nr. 9). However, since the panel has been sawn down on all sides no possible traces of hinging remain. An autonomous panel with this subject is of course not inconceivable (the Ghent Entombment being a case in point; cat. nr. 55), but it would it better in a suite of Passion scenes. Charles Sterling’s identiication of Nicodemus with Jean de Berry is seductive but probably too much of a stretch. Strikingly, though, Jean’s inventories do list several multi-part panel paintings.15 Larger panels are usually referred to as altarpieces. That is almost certainly correct in the case of the panel in St Omer (cat. nr. 58). It has a Cruciixion in the middle lanked by scenes from the lives of Sts Crispin and Crispinian in an arrangement that is familiar from French altarpieces.16 In addition, the panel has a provenance from the Shoemakers’ Chapel in the town’s Church of Saint-Sépulcre. The Getty panel of The adoration of the Magi with St Anthony Abbot could also have been an altarpiece (cat. nr. 26). The red background with stars recalls a panel of c. 1375 in the Church of Sankt-Maria-zur-Wiese in Soest (Westphalia), which is part of a chest-like structure with a decorated back. It was undoubtedly intended for the altar in the north apse, which according to an inscription was dedicated to St Thomas the apostle, the three Magi and Mary Magdalen, all of whom are depicted in the altarpiece.17 The Getty panel also has a saint beside the adoring Magi, this time St Anthony Abbot, which was reason enough to assume that “the panel was originally situated in a chapel or hospital dedicated to St Anthony” (p. 168). That is going a bit too far, because the present frame is not original, so the panel could be a fragment. If one follows the analogy with the Soest panel it is likely that there was another saint on the right. The Eyckian panel in Rotterdam (cat. nr. 82) is deinitely a fragment, and here too one reads that it “was undoubtedly intended as an altarpiece” (p. 293). But that is also uncertain. 15 Ibid., p. 313. For the identiication with Jean de Berry see C. Sterling, La peinture médiévale à Paris, 1300–1500, 2 vols., Paris 1987–90, vol. 1, pp. 250–59, nr. 39. 16 See P.-Y. Le Pogam (ed.), exhib. cat. Les premiers retables, Xiie­ début du Xve siècle: une mise en scène du sacré, Paris (Musée du Louvre) 2009, p. 91, and the examples on pp. 197, 231, 234, 244, 245, 247, 249 and 264. 17 For the panel in Soest see P. Pieper, exhib. cat. Westfälische Malerei des 14. Jahrhunderts, Münster (Landesmuseum) 1964, pp. 42–43; S. Kemperdick, Deutsche und Böhmische Gemälde 1230–1430: kritischer Bestandskatalog, Petersberg 2010, pp. 24–26. For the decoration see also V.M. Schmidt, “The painted reverse of the Westminster Retable,” in P. Binski and A. Massing (eds.), The Westminster Retable: history, technique, conservation, Cambridge & London 2009, pp. 136–42, esp. pp. 139–40. Painting around 1400 and the road to van Eyck 215 The orphaned rays of the glory show that the risen Christ was depicted on the right, and if there was a donor even further to the right the panel would be an epitaph, but not necessarily an altarpiece as well. The exhibition rightly included a number of autonomous painted portraits. Jan van Eyck’s likeness of Baudouin de Lannoy in Berlin (cat. nr. 84) is typical of an independent portrait of someone in his oicial capacity. The latter is also indicated by the sitter’s attribute of a peeled stick, which identiies de Lannoy as the holder of a public oice.18 The well-known small portrait of Lysbeth van Duvenvoorde on vellum in the Rijksmuseum is of a totally diferent type (cat. nr. 66). What is particularly striking about it is not just the almost full-length igure but also her position on the left rather than the more customary right (the male pendant is lost). This could indicate that this is a betrothal rather than a marriage portrait, and that seems to be borne out by the inscription.19 The portrait of a man with a rose in Berlin (cat. nr. 65), is also facing right, which implies that the woman in the probable pendant faced left. The hypothesis that this is a copy after a portrait of 1425–30 is plausible. This illustrates the importance of copies in early portraiture. The small likeness of John the Fearless in Antwerp (cat. nr. 64) is quite clearly a copy after an earlier original to which the artist added two standard hands resting on a sort of balustrade (a prie-dieu, according to the catalogue, p. 251). The portrait of Wenceslaus of Luxembourg in Museo Thyssen (cat. nr. 63) is very probably a copy as well, and as the author of the entry observes, it is “wholly rooted in traditional portrait typology, where the hands are not shown and the igure is depicted in proile” (p. 248). What is odd, though, is the hangdog gaze of the man as he looks upwards, for which there is no parallel in comparable portraits. A possible explanation is that the likeness was extracted from a religious scene in which Wenceslaus was depicted as a supplicant. The very earliest examples of canvas painting from northwestern Europe were represented by the wonderful Butterly Virgin from Berlin (cat. nr. 6) and the Madonna of Mercy from Le Puy-en-Velay (cat. nr. 16),20 both of which make it abundantly clear that the old idea that Tüchlein are cheap Ersatz cannot be right. Their execution is far too reined and sophisticated. If the Carrying of the Cross in Budapest (cat. nr. 88) gives an idea not only of the original, detailed Eyckian composition but of the original dimensions as well (97.5 × 129.5 cm), then the model may also have been painted on canvas. A work with this ratio of height to width would not immediately appear to it the bill for an altarpiece, but it would be perfectly suitable as a selfcontained religious scene in the room of a domestic interior. The catalogue provides a good explanation of the role of copies. Although they obviously tell us something about the original compositions it is often not easy to make out the original medium and function. Two drawings of The revenge of To­ myris (Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett) and of Jael driving a tent peg through Sisera’s temple (Braunschweig, Herzog Anton-UlrichMuseum) are very probably copies after Eyckian compositions in the town hall of Ghent (cat. nrs. 75–76). The panel with the Courtly feast from Versailles (cat. nr. 78) and the Fishing party drawing in the Louvre (cat. nr. 79) take us into the realm of the courts of Burgundy and Holland. It is not easy to say what they are copies of. Murals are what one thinks of irst, but Kemperdick makes it clear that a large panel is also one of the possibilities, for the subject of the feast appears to match a panel in El Pardo, Charles V’s hunting lodge, that was described by Gonzalo Argote de Molina (1548–96) in the appendix to his edition of the treatise on hunting by Alfonso xi of Castile (1311–50).21 Needless to say, really large works like the Cruciixion retable by Jacques de Baerze from Champmol or the Passion retable by the Master of Hakendover from Sankt Reinoldi in Dortmund could not be included in the exhibition, but they must be mentioned here because they demonstrate so well how painting was subordinate to wood carving. The Cruciixion retable was carved by de Baerze, but the outer wings were painted by Melchior Broederlam, who was also responsible for the entire polychromy of the interior. Retables of this kind were usually intended for high altars, or for important altars like the one founded by Jean de Berry behind the high altar at Champmol in the case of the Cruciixion ensemble. Fully painted altarpieces, like the one in Champmol traditionally attributed to Henri Bellechose (now in the Louvre), were more modest in size and were made for side altars, and it was not until the sixteenth century that that tradition changed.22 18 K. von Amira, Der Stab in der germanischen Rechtssymbolik, Munich 1909, esp. pp. 105–09. My thanks to Hugo van der Velden for this reference. 19 See the remarks in E. de Jongh, exhib. cat. Portretten van echt en trouw, Haarlem (Frans Halsmuseum) & Zwolle 1986, pp. 36–41. 20 On the canvas in Le Puy see the interesting recent monograph H. Millet and C. Rebel, La Vierge au manteau du Puy­en­Velay: un chef­ d’oeuvre du gothique international (vers 1400–1410), Lyon 2011. 21 G. Argote de Molina, “Discurso sobre el libro de la montería,” in Libro de la montería, Seville 1582. The relevant passage is on p. 21. For a transcription of the Spanish text with a French translation see L. Roblot-Delondre, “Argote de Molina et les tableaux du Pardo,” Revue Ar­ chéologique 16 (1910), pp. 52–70, esp. p. 56. It seems that the irst edition is rare, but it is now available in digital form at http://fondotesis.us.es/ fondos/libros/313/grabados/3516/libro-de-la-monteria-que-mandoescrevir-el-muy-alto-y-muy-poderoso-rey-don-alonso-de-castilla-yde-leon-vltimo-de-este-nombre/. 22 S. Kemperdick, “Altar panels in northern Germany, 1180–1350,” in J.E.A. Kroesen and V.M. Schmidt (eds.), The altar and its environment 1150–1400, Turnhout 2009, pp. 125–46, esp. p. 141. For the Cruciixion retable in particular see R. Prochno, Die Kartause von Champmol: Grab­ lege der burgundischen Herzöge 1364–1477, Berlin 2002, pp. 127–36. 23 See M. Tomasi (ed.), L’art multliplié: production de masse, en série, pour le marché dans les arts entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance, Rome 2011, 216 book review output and survivals The small Chicago triptych, the central part of a triptych in Cologne, the Ghent quatrefoil and the two small triptychs in Schwerin (cat. nrs. 53–57) were brought together for the irst time in the exhibition and attributed to “a Flemish workshop that was able to respond skilfully to varying demands, producing both challenging works... and mass products” (p. 227). Now the diferences should not be overstated, for the Chicago triptych is not all that reined. The smaller pieces from Ghent and Schwerin are just executed more coarsely and would have been priced accordingly. The two small triptychs came from the Cistercian convent in Schwerin and probably arrived there through contacts with the Hanseatic League. Whereas there are Carthusian monks in the two panels from Champmol (cat. nr. 5), there is no sign of a nun praying in these triptychs. They are not personalized, in other words, and may have been bought of the shelf. That is all absolutely fascinating, but does it also imply the “mass production” asserted in the catalogue? The term is anyway an unfortunate one when applied to the middle ages and the early modern period, since these are still craft products that difer one from the next.23 Unfortunately, we still do not know enough to establish a more well-deined framework for these small panels. Was it a workshop that produced the entire range of painted objects or were these panels of such a very modest size a miniaturists’ sideline? The precise assessment of this group of small panels brings me to another point, and that is how one should evaluate the estimates of lost panel paintings of the late middle ages. In their introductory essay (p. 15) Kemperdick and Lammertse suggest that “perhaps less than one percent” of early panel paintings survive, citing Gerd von der Osten, who came up with a similarly gloomy estimate for Cologne paintings.24 Figures like this arouse great skepticism. They can only be sheer guesswork, and the main thing they cannot do is make a distinction between quantity and quality. Losses will indeed be around 99% for canvases and decorative paintings, but it is not on to suggest that there were dozens, if not hundreds, of works like the Nor­ folk triptych. The very inest art has always been exceptional, so more examples of it will have been preserved than of the second-rate. Is it pure chance that two panels dating from around 1400 that surfaced recently are precisely such superb pieces? The Man of sorrows in the Louvre is obviously by the Master of the Large Round Pietà (Johan Maelwael?), and may have been commissioned by Jean de Berry. The igure of the donor in the small panel of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane that was recently acquired by the Prado has been identiied convincingly as Duke Louis i of Anjou.25 What does all this mean? Entire sectors have disappeared almost completely, such as mural painting, especially of profane subjects, to say nothing of polychromy and gilding. Most of our knowledge of decorative or heraldic painting comes from payments or other documents. One can sense something of the previous abundance from the later coats of arms in the chapters of the Golden Fleece or from the banners that the Swiss captured from Charles the Bold’s army in 1476.26 The losses of paintings on canvas will also have been astronomical. Decorative paintings on canvas from Paris and Bruges were being bought and sold in Barcelona and Avignon at the end of the fourteenth century,27 and the “panni iandreschi” still enjoyed a measure of renown in Florence in the ifteenth century. Some were of religious subjects, but most were ‘genre’ scenes of dancers, musicians and the like. Several Florentine engravings and drawings attributed to Verrocchio probably relect works of this kind. None of them have survived, with the exception of an Adoration of the Magi by Gerard David, which is now in the Uizi. It is of excellent quality, which is probably why it survived in the irst place. And that is also why it is not representative of the entire output of these “panni.”28 On the other hand, one must not overestimate the scale of what we now call painting. As we have seen, panel painting consisted of a large number of usually small object types. The contribution of painting to large retables mainly took the form of polychromy, with the igured decoration of the wings being of secondary importance. The idea of gigantic losses also has something to do with the fact that one comes across the names of many painters in documents whose oeuvres are now totally unknown. What is forgotten is that the documents make no distinction between what we would call art painters, decorative painters and house painters. esp. Tomasi’s introduction and the contribution by Maximiliaan Martens. 24 G. von der Osten, “Vermutungen über die Anzahl der Altkölner Tafel- und Leinwandbilder,” in R. Wallrath et al. (eds.), exhib. cat. Vor Stefan Lochner: die Kölner Maler von 1300 bis 1430, Cologne (WallrafRichartz-Museum) 1974, pp. 26–29. 25 D. Thiébaut, Attribué à Jean Malouel: le Christ de pitié soutenu pas saint Jean l’Évangéliste en présence de la Vierge et de deux anges, Paris 2012; P. Silva Maroto, La Oración en el huerto con el donante Luis I de Orleans (hacia 1405–1408), Madrid 2013. 26 H. Pauwels et al., exhib. cat., Het Gulden Vlies: vijf eeuwen kunst en geschiedenis, Bruges (Groeningemuseum) 1962; F. Deuchler, Die Burgun­ derbeute: Inventar der Beutestücke aus den Schlachten von Grandson, Murten und Nancy, 1476/1477, Bern 1963, pp. 223–301. 27 R. Brun, “Notes sur le commerce des objets d’art en France et principalement à Avignon à la in du xive siècle,” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 95 (1934), pp. 327–46, esp. pp. 338–39. 28 P. Nuttall, “‘Panni dipinti di Fiandra’: Netherlandish painted cloths in ifteenth-century Florence,” in C. Villers (ed.), The fabric of im­ ages: European paintings on textile supports in the fourteenth and ifteenth centuries, London 2000, pp. 109–17. Nuttall discusses the engravings and drawings at greater length in B.W. Meijer (ed.), exhib. cat. Firenze e gli antichi Paesi Bassi 1430–1530: dialoghi tra artisti, da Jan van Eyck a Ghirlandaio, da Memling a Rafaello, Florence (Palazzo Pitti) & Livorno 2008, pp. 127–37, cat. nrs. 16–22. Painting around 1400 and the road to van Eyck 217 It is known that some relatively well-documented igures like Johan Maelwael covered the entire gamut of painting, but according to the documents Hue de Boulogne, for instance, was a specialist in decorative work.29 It is no wonder that someone like that is just a name and will always remain so. The extent to which a painter of those days does not correspond to the modern notion of an artist also emerges from an interesting Paris document of 1391, the year in which new statutes of the corporation of painters and woodcarvers were adopted in the presence of 25 “peintres” and 5 “tailleurs d’ymages.” The distinction between the two is not always clear, because some sculptors are occasionally also referred to as painters as well. That, though, was not so much because they were dual talents but because they also polychromed their own statues. Of course there is always someone like André Beauneveu, with his superb statues and well-known miniatures of the prophets in the Psal­ ter of Jean de Berry (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. fr. 13091). He would have been an exception, though, and anyway his miniatures are even more exceptional in that they were not executed in the usual technique.30 Philippe Henwood has managed to trace 18 of the 30 named painters and sculptors in other documents.31 Three were sculptors, and two more are referred to as both painter and sculptor. Four others are called painters. The activities of ive other painters are described in the documents, and in each case it involved decorative work. More is known about only two of the painters. Colart de Laon was the painter to King Charles vi, Louis I d’Anjou and his son Charles. Most of the activities described in the documents were for decorative work, but one case involved ‘true’ panel painting. If the Prado’s recent acquisition can indeed be associated with Colart then we now also have an idea of his work on panel. The other painter, the irst on the Paris list, is Jean d’Orléans, painter in the service of three successive French kings. Judging by the documents he can be regarded as a ‘true’ art painter. The tendency nowadays is to identify him with the Master of the Parement of Narbonne, who also worked as a miniaturist and was one of the inest artists of his day.32 Paris was undoubtedly an artistic center around 1400, but these facts, sketchy as they are, do not create the impression that much panel painting was produced there. On this point it is enlightening to take a look at Italy. As a result of intensive stylistic analysis combined with archival research we now know of at least 13 painters with a recognizable oeuvre who were active in Florence around 1400,33 not counting painters who are mentioned in documents but to whom no work can be attributed. A couple of them still have ad hoc names, but they will be identiied in due course. Strikingly, these 13 painters produced not only a recognizable oeuvre but also a sizable one, sometimes running into dozens of works, including frescoes. This gives an idea of the numbers that are left, even by the less gifted painters. What has survived of Netherlandish and French panel painting from around 1400 pales into insigniicance by comparison. That cannot be due entirely to Iconoclasm, French Revolution, wars and other calamities. This is about a completely diferent artistic tradition. We must not fall into the trap of assuming that there have been gigantic losses. 29 For the documents on Maelwael see F. Gorissen, “Jan Maelwael und die Brüder Limburg: eine nimweger Künstlerfamilie um die Wende des 14. Jhs.,” Gelre: Bijdragen en Mededelingen 54 (1954), pp. 153–221. On Hue see G. Troescher, Burgundische Malerei: Maler und Malwerke um 1400 in Burgund, dem Berry mit der Auvergne und in Savoyen mit ihren Quellen, Berlin 1966, pp. 104–05. 30 S. Nash, André Beauneveu, “no equal in any land”: artist to the courts of France and Flanders, London 2007, esp. ch. 3. 31 P. Henwood, “Peintres et sculpteurs parisiens des années 1400: Colaert de Laon et les statuts de 1391,” Gazette des Beaux­Arts 98 (1981), pp. 95–102. The original was published in C. Leber, Collection des meil­ leurs dissertations, notices et traités particuliers relatifs à l’histoire de France, 20 vols., Paris 1838, vol. 19, pp. 451–58. 32 For Jean d’Orléans see P. Henwood, “Jean d’Orléans, peintre des rois Jean ii, Charles v et Charles vi (1361–1407),” Gazette des Beaux­Arts 95 (1980), pp. 137–40. For the identiication of the Parament Master see the recent publication by F. Avril, N. Reynaud and D. Cordelier (eds.), exhib. cat. Les enluminures du Louvre: moyen âge et Renaissance, Paris (Musée du Louvre) 2011, p. 140 (with further literature). 33 They are Gherardo di Jacopo, called Starnina; Niccolò di Pietro Gerini; Cenni di Francesco di ser Cenni; Mariotto di Nardo; Lorenzo Monaco; Lorenzo di Niccolò; Lorenzo di Bicci; Spinello Aretino; Rossello di Jacopo Franchi; “Pseudo-Ambrogio di Baldese,” identiied with Lippo d’Andrea; the Master of Borgo alla Collina, identiied with Scolaio di Giovanni; the Master of 1399, identiied with Giovanni di Tano Fei; the Master of the Straus Madonna; and the Master of St Ives. This information is based partly on M. Boskovits, Pittura iorentina alla vigi­ lia del Rinascimento, 1370–1400, Florence 1975, and Anneke de Vries, Schilderkunst in Florence tussen 1400 en 1430: een onderzoek naar stijl en stilistische vernieuwing, diss., Leiden 2004. places and names Kemperdick and Lammertse dispiritedly say that “we know less about the Netherlands... than we do about France and the German-speaking regions. Far fewer works have survived — twenty or thirty paintings on panel at best, probably only a tiny fraction of what must have once existed.” Great restraint has traditionally been exercised when it comes to attributions, even when there are obvious similarities between works. That undoubtedly has something to do with the assumed gigantic losses. In general one wonders just how realistic it is to think that irst-rate works are anonymous, and will remain so. In individual cases renewed stylistic analysis will most deinitely supply fresh insights, and in that respect this catalogue has a lot to ofer, partly because of its broad approach to the material, with the curators avoiding the limitations of a FrancoFlemish view but making a point of expanding the panorama to include the German regions. 218 book review The catalogue opens strongly with a very solid entry on the Antwerp­Baltimore quadriptych (cat. nr. 1), which Kemperdick convincingly argues should be dated much earlier than is generally assumed. He weaves an entire web of international relations around the small panels before drawing attention to little-known miniatures in a missal in Cambrai that can be dated to the 1370s (cat. nr. 2). This, incidentally, is one of the many moments when illuminated manuscripts can proitably be compared with panel paintings. There is also an interesting tendency to stress the unity of the group of works that can be associated with the Burgundian court painters Jean de Beaumetz, Johan Maelwael and Henri Bellechose. I would nevertheless like to introduce more nuances into this group than is done in the catalogue. I would prefer to keep the two Cruciixion panels for Champmol from the workshop of Jean de Beaumetz separate from the group around the Large round Pietà in the Louvre, which can be attributed to Johan Maelwael on the basis of circumstantial evidence.34 There are similarities, admittedly, but they have more to do with the artistic origins of the painter of the Large round Pietà. Works that belong to the same group are the recently acquired Man of sorrows in the Louvre, the small Beistegui Madonna in the same museum, and the Butterly Virgin canvas in Berlin (cat. nr. 6), the attribution of which to Maelwael, or more precisely to the Master of the Large Round Pietà, is to my mind wrongly doubted in the catalogue. I would also like to place diferent accents within the small group of four panels that was exhibited with the general location of “Paris or Dijon (?)” and dated around 1410: the Small round Pietà in the Louvre, the Troyes Pietà, the Entombment in the Louvre mentioned above, and the Lamentation of Christ with a Carthusian monk in Brussels (cat. nrs. 7–10). Paris was only proposed in the past because of the idea that it was an important artistic center. The label “Dijon” has been attached because of the associations with the Master of the Large Round Pietà (Johan Maelwael?) and the altarpiece from Champmol mentioned above, which is traditionally attributed to Henri Bellechose, Maelwael’s successor as court painter in Dijon (ig. 5). I ind it diicult to assess the Brussels Lamentation, partly because it is not in very good condition. The Small round Pietà and the Entombment, on the other hand, are clearly by the same artist, in my opinion. In addition, there are deinite similarities to the group around the Large round Pietà, particularly in the igure types, as can be seen from the dead Christ and the St Johns. The Virgin in the Small round Pietà is making the same gesture as in the recently acquired Man of sorrows in the Louvre. What I do not know is just how one should encapsulate these similarities in a label. The small Entombment and the Troyes Pietà hung together in the show, so one could easily see that there really are diferences in the execution. The Berlin canvas (cat. nr. 6) was on the wall beside them, which also facilitated comparison. It now seems certain to me that both the Berlin canvas and the Troyes Pietà are from the same hand — that of the Master of the Large Round Pietà. The Troyes Pietà has also often been associated with the altarpiece from the choir of the lay brothers of Champmol (ig. 1 on p. 41), and rightly so. The latter shows Christ on the Cross held by God the Father accompanied by the Holy Ghost, together with two scenes from the life of St Denis of Paris. It is generally attributed to Bellechose on the evidence of a payment of 1416 for pigments to “complete a panel of the life of St Denis” (“parfaire ung taubleau de la vie Saint Denis”).35 The trouble is that the connection with the Louvre retable is based on slender evidence. It is true that there are two scenes from the life of St Denis, but the main scene is that of the Trinity (to which Champmol was dedicated). What is also striking is that the panel is called a panel plain and simple (“taubleau”), and not an altar panel (“table d’autel”), which is what the Champmol altarpieces are called in many other documents. It very much looks as though the payment was for another panel, now lost, in which there were indeed scenes from the life of St Denis and which may have been intended as the antependium for the retable that is now in the Louvre. Such a combination was certainly not uncommon.36 Be that as it may, there is “[no] obvious difference in style” between the retable and the group around the Large round Pietà, as Lammertse justly remarks (p. 131). If one can accept that, there is no other reason to associate the related paintings with Paris, because both Maelwael and Bellechose worked in Dijon. If the link between the Champmol altarpiece and Bellechose is severed he is really left without an oeuvre at all. It is here, though, that the strange panel in Washington comes into play (cat. nr. 17). The curators followed the recent catalogue of the National Gallery of Art by exhibiting it as “Paris (?),” with a date in the second quarter of the ifteenth century. The igure of Joseph closely resembles that of the executioner in the Champmol retable (igs. 4, 5), and I do not think it is too farfetched to assume that the painter of the Virgin panel knew 34 The following is partly based on V.M. Schmidt, “Johan Maelwael: reconstructie van een grote meester,” Kunstschrift 56 (2012), nr. 5, pp. 14–22, and idem, “Johan Maelwael and the beginnings of Netherlandish canvas painting,” in J. Chapuis (ed.), Invention: northern Renais­ sance studies in honor of Molly Faries, Turnhout 2008, pp. 21–29. 35 For the text of this document see Prochno, op. cit. (note 22), pp. 276–77, and for the interpretation, which has become traditional, N. Reynaud, “A propos du Martyre de Saint Denis,” Revue du Louvre et des Musées de France 11 (1961), pp. 175–76. 36 See V.M. Schmidt, “Ensembles of painted altarpieces and frontals,” in Kroesen and Schmidt, op. cit. (note 22), pp. 203–21, esp. pp. 212–17. My hypotheses about the altarpiece in the Louvre are not correctly reported in Le Pogam, op. cit. (note 16), pp. 191–92. Painting around 1400 and the road to van Eyck 219 4 Anonymous French painter (Henri Bellechose ?), The expectant Virgin with St Joseph, c. 1420–25. Washington, National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection 5 Here attributed to Johan Maelwael, The Trinity and two scenes from the life of St Denis, detail: the saint’s executioner, before 1415. Paris, Musée du Louvre the retable. Could this perhaps be a work by Bellechose then? Whatever the answer, the present dating seems too late to me, with the earlier one of 1420–25 given in the older literature being more plausible. It is unclear at the moment what else one is meant to group under the heading of Parisian panel painting. The best candidate is perhaps the Frick Madonna and Child (cat. nr. 12). The most precise attribution, which goes unmentioned in the catalogue, is to the Master of the Breviary of John the Fearless on the basis of an initial with the same type of Virgin in that brev- iary (London, British Library, Ms. Add. 648, fol. 8r).37 Although alluring, the similarities are perhaps more iconographic than stylistic. Other comparative material includes the Vienna An­ nunciation for its striking anatomical details of slitted eyes, sharp noses and chins, and spidery hands. That panel, which is traditionally attributed to the Master of Heiligenkreuz, may have been made by someone called André, a painter from Paris who is documented in Vienna between 1417 and 1436.38 Similar pronounced facial features are also found in a glass panel with the personiication of Rhetoric from the chapterhouse of Char- 37 F. Elsig, La pittura in Francia nel Xv secolo, Milan 2004, pp. 20 and 71. For the miniature and the attribution see M. Meiss, French painting in the time of Jean de Berry: the Limbourg brothers and their contemporaries, New York 1974, p. 376 and pl. 678. 38 See R. Perger, Wiener Künstler des Mittelalters und der beginnenden Neuzeit: Regesten, Vienna 2005, p. 131. 220 book review 6 Anonymous Bruges painter, Triptych with the Lamentation and Sts Anthony the Great and John the Baptist, c. 1410–20. Private collection tres Cathedral. Records of payments enable it to be dated to 1415, and the glass painter is known to have been Jean Perier.39 The other two comparative works are also dated to the 1410s, as it happens, which suggests that there is some latitude in the dating of the Frick Madonna and Child. In the realm of southern Netherlandish painting the exhibition scored an important irst in the form of the small Lam­ entation triptych from a private Italian collection, which the Rotterdam museum is thinking of buying (cat. nr. 39; ig. 6). Convincing parallels with miniatures in a book of hours from Bruges (Rouen, Bibliothèque Municipale, Ms. 3024) mean that this panel was very probably made there as well. The remarkable fact that the miniature of the Flight into Egypt in that manuscript (fol. 53v) repeats Broederlam’s composition in the Cruciixion retable in Dijon is illustrative of the ties between miniatures and panel painting.40 There are also broad similarities to the ‘tower retable triptych’ in Antwerp (cat. nr. 28). That remarkable object will have been executed in the southern Netherlands, but there is no consensus on the precise location, let alone the attribution. In the catalogue entry Borchert once again draws attention to various miniatures in the so-called Très Belles Heures de Notre­ Dame de Jean de Berry (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. fr. 3093), which is generally considered to be by the Master of the Parement of Narbonne (who may be identical with Jean d’Orléans) before cautiously suggesting that the tabernacle may have been produced “in the vicinity of the ParementMaster’s workshop in Paris.” I do not think that this is a good suggestion. There are certainly similarities, but they are mainly to the iconographic models and not so much to the style.41 Stylistic parallels can be found in the Large Carrand diptych in the Bargello in Florence, and even more so with Broederlam, and in the process one should not be misled by the small scale of the compositions on the tabernacle, which are also in an awkwardly narrow and tall format, and the monumentality of the exterior wings of the Cruciixion retable in Dijon.42 39 See E. Taburet-Delahaye (ed.), exhib. cat. Paris 1400: les arts sous Charles vi, Paris (Musée du Louvre) 2004, p. 95, nr. 37. 40 For the manuscript see M. Smeyers, exhib. cat. Vlaamse minia­ turen voor van Eyck (ca. 1380–ca. 1420): catalogus, Leuven (Cultureel Centrum Romaanse Poort) 1993, pp. 99–104, cat. nr. 33, and idem, Vlaamse miniaturen van de 8ste tot het midden van de 16de eeuw: de middeleeuwse wereld op perkament, Leuven 1998, pp. 205–06. 41 The connection with the Très Belles Heures de Notre­Dame was irst made in A.H. van Buren, “Thoughts, old and new, on the sources of early Netherlandish painting,” Simiolus 16 (1986), pp. 93–112, esp. pp. 108–09. For a detailed evaluation see Mund et al., op. cit. (note 11), pp. 245–46. 42 For the connection with the Bargello diptych see especially C. Stroo (ed.), Pre­Eyckian panel painting in the Low Countries, 2 vols., Brussels 2009, vol. 1, p. 107. The association with Broederlam is examined in Mund et al., op. cit. (note 11), pp. 244–47. 43 G. Kiesel, “Lambert von Maastricht,” in E. Kirschbaum (ed.), Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, 8 vols., Freiburg 1968–76, vol. 7, cols. 363–69. Painting around 1400 and the road to van Eyck In contrast to the Antwerp ‘tower retable’, the Norfolk trip­ tych in Rotterdam (cat. nr. 33) appears to be an art-historical anomaly, if one disregards a drawing at Erlangen University, which has now been linked stylistically with the triptych for the irst time (cat. nr. 34). The catalogue entry merely sums up the earlier literature, but to start with there are various iconographic observations to be made. The central scene is of Christ as the Man of Sorrows below a scene of himself and his mother enthroned in heaven. It is surrounded by a small litany of saints, most of whom have justiiably been associated with the bishopric of Liège. Pride of place, immediately to the left of the Man of Sorrows, is Lambert, the patron saint of Liège Cathedral. Around his shoulders he is wearing a rationale, a collar with which the bishop saint was mainly depicted in Liège.43 The key held by St Servatius beside him is no arbitrary attribute but very speciically the Carolingian key of St Servatius, recognizable as such from the bit with ive crosses which is still preserved in the Church of St Servatius in Maastricht.44 The bishop opposite Lambert on the right is identiied by the inscription as Martin of Tours, who had a collegiate church dedicated to him in Liège and whose feast day in the cathedral had the rank of a duplex, as did Servatius’s.45 The inscription below the bishop beside Martin has been lost, and since he does not have a distinctive attribute there has been considerable speculation about his identity. If the cathedral liturgy did indeed inluence the choice of the most important saints in the triptych then a good candidate would be Theodardus, who was Lambert’s teacher and predecessor as bishop. They were the only two saints to be honored with a totum duplex feast day in the cathedral.46 On the evidence of these associations one could assume that the person who commissioned this reined triptych was a high-ranking priest of Liège, perhaps even the bishop himself. The eligible candidates in the 1410s were John of Bavaria, bishop-elect from 1390 to 1418 (and Jan van Eyck’s later patron), Johann Walenrode, who was appointed by Pope Martin v in 1418 but died a year later, and his successor Jan van Heinsberg. It will of course be necessary to establish the relevance of the saints in the triptych for the various candidates. One observation that can be made, although it only gives an idea of the status of the patron, concerns the resemblance of the Magus on the outer right wing, with his striking fur hat (a sort of ushanka) and prominent hooked nose, to the Emperor Sigismund (ig. 7), as Bertalan Kéry demonstrated back in 1972.47 One of the Magi in the drawing of the Adoration 44 For a detailed description see A.M. Koldeweij, Der gude Sente Servas: de Servatiuslegende en de Servatiana, Assen & Maastricht 1985, pp. 80–117. 45 S. Bormans and É. Schoolmeesters, “Le Liber oiciorum ecclesiæ Leodiensis,” Compte Rendu des Séances de la Commission Royale d’Histoire ou Recueil de ses Bulletins, 5me série, 6 (1896), pp. 445–520, esp. p. 495; C. Saucier, Sacred music and musicians at the Cathedral and collegiate churches of Liège, 1330–1500, diss., Chicago 2005, p. 144. For Theodardus 221 7 Anonymous Southern Netherlandish or Rhenish painter, Norfolk triptych, detail from the right exterior wing: a Magus (crypto-portrait of Emperor Sigismund?), c. 1410–20. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in the Rijksmuseum, which is probably a copy after an Eyckian composition (cat. nr. 74), is holding exactly the same kind of hat, and according to Kéry he too is meant to be Sigismund, as is the central king in the drawing from the Utrecht workshop of the Master of Zweder van Culemborg in Berlin (cat. nr. 73).48 It is true that the latter has a distinctively hooked nose but he is wearing a turban, whereas it is the young king on the right who is wearing the fur hat. Kéry had to resort to various hypotheses to make his case that the central king is Sigismund, and they did nothing to help his argument. It is perhaps due to a general skepticism about the identiication of crypto-portraits that his important observations about both the Norfolk triptych and the two drawings have not been picked up in the literature. The connections between the Norfolk triptych and Liège are interesting, because Maaseik, which was very probably Jan van Eyck’s birthplace, lies in the same bishopric. The reasoning is that he could have seen this painter’s work. However, there see also G. Kiesel, “Theodard (Dodart) von Maastricht” in Kirschbaum, op. cit. (note 43), vol. 8, cols. 442–43. 46 Bormans and Schoolmeesters, op. cit. (note 45), pp. 484–85; Saucier, op. cit. (note 45), pp. 109–19, 144. 47 B. Kéry, Kaiser Sigismund: Ikonographie, Vienna & Munich 1972, pp. 163–66. 48 Ibid., pp. 162–63 and 166–67. 222 book review of work from Cologne, especially in the face, maybe the picture was painted by an artist from Utrecht.”50 His intuition is now backed in the catalogue by a comparison with heads from several Cologne pictures, speciically the Cruciixion from SanktAndreas in Cologne and the Madonna of the lowering pea (both in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum). Those heads of the female saint and of the Christ Child, though, are generalized and not portraits. I am unable to see the stylistic similarities. What is said about an Adoration of the Magi (cat. nr. 72) in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin is more convincing. It is located in the northern Netherlands, possibly in Utrecht, and is dated around 1430 on the basis of a comparison with the abovementioned drawing in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, which is now generally attributed to the workshop of the Master of Zweder van Culemborg (cat. nr. 73). The new attribution seems to be the best for the time being, despite the lack of further stylistic parallels. Whatever the truth of the matter, the very fact that this panel is presented in this context is typical of the curators’ fresh look at the material. is nothing to indicate that the latter was active in Liège. The iconography is merely a pointer to the destination of the triptych, not to the origins of the artist. It is perfectly possible that he should be sought in the Rhineland and not in the southern Netherlands at all. A few similarities to work from the Upper Rhine region, such as the Little garden of Paradise (cat. nr. 37) and the superb small panel with the Annunciation in Winterthur (Sammlung Oskar Reinhart, ‘Am Römerholz’), which are noted elsewhere in the catalogue, are enticing in this respect.49 There are also some interesting proposals relating to northern Netherlandish painting. The Rijksmuseum’s Portrait of Lys­ beth van Duvenvoorde (cat. nr. 66) is now said to originate from Cologne. That suggestion is not entirely new, for Kurt Bauch volunteered years ago that the style “is reminiscent above all van eyck and his ‘road’ There were seven works by Jan van Eyck or his immediate circle in the show. The inclusion of the Turin­Milan hours (cat. nr. 80) was an experience of the irst order, and a previously unexhibited and highly detailed Cru­ ciixion drawing from a private collection justiiably attracted a great deal of attention (cat. nr. 86; ig. 8). The similarities to the small Cruciixion panel in New York are so great that an attribution to at least the workshop of Jan van Eyck is warranted. Another drawing, The ishing party from the Louvre (cat. nr. 79), was the pièce de resistance last year in a small presentation and colloquium in Museum Meermanno in The Hague (Jan van Eyck terug in Den Haag, 25 February–11 March 2012). The attribution to Jan van Eyck in the period when he was working for the Count of Holland (1422–25) was constantly being suggested at the time, but the stylistic argument was studiously avoided. Writing in the Rotterdam catalogue, Guido Messling correctly downgraded this colored pen drawing to “northern Netherlands c. 1420,” with the guarded escape clause: “or based on a model from this period.” The drawing was subjected to technical examination on the instigation of Claudine ChavannesMazel, and it is to be hoped that the publication that we are promised will provide new insights into the function of this exceptional sheet, since that aspect is currently far more interesting than the issue of attribution. The Eyckian panels in the exhibition framed the Rotterdam fragment with the three Marys, literally as well as iguratively. The autograph nature of the Washington Annunciation (cat. nr. 49 K. Dyballa, “Cologne and western Germany,” pp. 49–50; S. Kemperdick and F. Lammertse, “Painting around 1400 and Jan van Eyck’s early work,” p. 93; and Kemperdick’s catalogue entry on p. 196. 50 Kurt Bauch, Studien zur Kunstgeschichte, Berlin 1967, p. 107: “... erinnert am ehesten, besonders im Anlitz, an Kölnisches, vielleicht ist das Werk von einem Utrechter Künstler gemalt.” 8 Workshop of Jan van Eyck, Cruciixion, drawing, second quarter of the ifteenth century. Private collection Painting around 1400 and the road to van Eyck 223 83) is no longer doubted, but the date can be adjusted a bit. Given comparisons with The Ghent altarpiece, Kemperdick’s dating to the irst half of the fourth decade of the ifteenth century seems to be a good suggestion. The Cruciixion panel in Berlin (cat. nr. 81) is now presented as possibly autograph, and the Rotterdam panel (cat. nr. 82) as a product of Jan and his workshop. Kemperdick and Lammertse raise the question of that workshop in their second introductory essay (pp. 96–98). The suggestion that it was a family business, with the participation of the brother Lambert, seems to it in with recent developments in Bosch research.51 Hubert’s role remains unclear, however, partly because the authors point out that there is no evidence that he and Jan ever shared a workshop. The quatrain on The Ghent altarpiece states that the elder brother was “maior quo nemo repertus” (“a greater man than whom cannot be found”), but the authors rightly add that this also has a rhetorical dimension. I would like to pursue that line of thought. The poet was not only praising the painter but also implicitly congratulating the patron or owner who had commissioned the Latin quatrain on his (or her) fortunate choice of artist.52 Be that as it may, the debate about the ‘hands’ (belonging to family members or others) in the van Eyck group will undoubtedly continue unabated, but the idea of a family business can shift it in a diferent direction. Finally, a few words about the style of van Eyck (with or without the addition of the word “frères”). In their second essay Kemperdick and Lammertse correctly stress that all kinds of individual aspects and motifs in van Eyck’s art had already been seen before, such as “playing with illusion and the boundaries of the picture plane” (p. 90). The Norfolk triptych is an important precedent in that respect, speciically because of St Agnes’s cloak draped over the painted architecture, and more generally the remarkable architecture in which the igures are placed and the spatial articulation of the igures themselves. The igures of Adam and Eve in The Ghent altarpiece, however realistic they may look, would have been inconceivable without the models of the Limbourg brothers. The detailed and realistic depictions of animals, birds in particular, and plants is also found in earlier manuscript illuminations. As to the use of light and shade in the rendering of objects, Kemperdick and Lammertse cite the Master of Heiligenkreuz as an example. And for the depiction of landscape and atmospheric efects there are of course precedents in the miniatures by the Limbourg brothers and the Master of Boucicault. There, though, the horizons are still unnaturally high and there is no realistic connection between foreground and background, or with the igures that populate the landscape. The point is that van Eyck did not just gather together all sorts of elements that one sees individually in works by earlier masters but also combined them in realistic relationships, as if he had designed a new system of coordinates. All of that, moreover, executed with a fabulous oil paint technique that makes even works in which the spatial relationships are a little odd, such as the fragment in Rotterdam, nevertheless look more realistic than the paintings that went before them.53 Kemperdick and Lammertse do not delve deeper into the connections with other art forms, despite the fact that there were superb examples of sculpture and precious metalwork in the exhibition. Van Eyck could certainly have taken inspiration from those forms for the spatial structure of his igures. In that respect it was a good decision to exhibit the silver-gilt reliefs from a reliquary bust of St Servatius of 1403 (cat. nr. 32; Hamburg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe). The wonderful igures are full of movement, such as the saint jabbing his staf down a dragon’s throat. Although the elements of the architecture and the landscape are highly detailed they are very conventional in the suggestion of space and their relationship to the active igures, because they were still being conceived as set pieces around the igure and not as spatial structures in which the igures act. The distance from the Turin­Milan hours (cat. nr. 80) is vast. The tabernacle from Chocques in the Rijksmuseum (cat. nr. 22) is instructive as a comparative work. The “angel pietà” in en ronde bosse enamel in the central compartment has a powerful physical presence. The poses and garments do give the two saints in champlevé enamel on the outer wings a certain spatiality, but John the Baptist (the only igure whose feet can be seen) still has Vasari’s “piedi ritti in punta” (“feet stretched on tiptoe”). Apart from the plasticity of the igures, these objects still conform totally to the conventions of contemporary painting. One interesting feature of the Amsterdam tabernacle is the pointillé decoration on the back. This engraving technique was copied by contemporary painters for decorations in their gold backgrounds. Such artiice is absent from van Eyck’s art, in which the costliness of materials is evoked primarily with painterly means.54 The Prado’s two superb wooden angels with the arma Christi signed by Tydeman Maes are of a slightly later date (cat. nr. 51 R. Spronk, Eigenhandig? Opmerkingen bij de schildertechniek en toeschrijvingsproblematiek bij Jheronimus Bosch / All by himself? Remarks on painting technique and attributions in regard to Hieronymus Bosch, Nijmegen 2011. 52 Cf. C. Gilbert, “A preface to signatures (with some cases in Venice),” in M. Rogers (ed.), Fashioning identities in Renaissance art, Aldershot 2000, pp, 79–89, esp. pp. 81–82. For the most recent study of the quatrain see H. van der Velden, “The quatrain of The Ghent altarpiece,” Simiolus 35 (2011), pp. 5–39. 53 As far as the technique of oil painting is concerned one would have expected the bibliography to list the recent study by M.A.H. Bol, Oil and the translucent: varnishing and glazing in practice, recipes and histo­ riography, 1100–1600, diss., Utrecht 2012. 54 On the pointillé technique see N. Straford, “De opere punctili: 224 45). The resemblance to the singing angels in The Ghent altar­ piece has already been noted, and might have been even more pronounced if the polychromy was more detailed (the present painting is not original). Could statues of this kind have been a source of inspiration for van Eyck, or did he inspire them? Unfortunately they can only be dated approximately to c. 1425–35, so the question cannot be answered. The problem is nevertheless interesting in the light of a document of 1435 in which van Eyck and his colleagues Willem van Tonghere and Jan van den Driessche were commissioned to polychrome eight stone statues for the town hall of Ghent. Jan eventually polychromed and gilded six of them, and was paid more per statue than his fellow artists because of the overtime he had put in and “out of sympathy.”55 As far as I know this is the only document to show that van Eyck also practiced this very traditional part of the painter’s craft. Even then he seems to have made something special of it. All of this ultimately raises the question of whether there really is a road to van Eyck. One cannot take the curators to task for not stressing van Eyck’s innovations. But the answer to the question is not an unqualiied “yes.” If “the art of 1400” does actually constitute a road, it does not logically lead directly to van Eyck. There is a huge gap that can only be bridged with a great leap. That leap cannot be ‘explained’ but contextualized at best, and that is in fact what Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has done. A more systematic examination of the full range of the painter’s craft, the types of object and the importance of painting relative to other art forms, especially sculpture and precious metalwork, could have made the picture of painting around 1400 even richer and more complex. All the same, what was put on display was carefully selected and of high quality. And something really new was said about several important works. The catalogue is consequently an important contribution to the study of both Jan van Eyck and art around 1400 due to the many new insights, suggestions and points for discussion it contains, not forgetting the unresolved question of the “road” to van Eyck. Beobachtungen zur Technik der Punktpunzierung um 1400,” in R. Baumstark (ed.), Das Göldene Rössl: ein Meisterwerk der Pariser Hofkunst um 1400, Munich 1995, pp. 131–45. For the technique in contemporary painting see A. de Marchi, “Interferenze possibili tra oreiceria e pittura nel Nord Italia, prima e dopo Gentile da Fabriano,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosoia. Quaderni, 4, serie 15 (2003), pp. 27–47. 55 M.P.J. Martens, Artistic patronage in Bruges institutions, ca. 1440– 1482, diss., Santa Barbara 1992, pp. 90–91 and 418–19, nr. 6 (text of the document and an English translation). victor m. schmidt department of history and art history university of utrecht