Dresden Triptych
It echoes a number of the motifs of his earlier works while marking an advancement in his ability in handling depth of space, and establishes iconographic elements of Marian portraiture that were to become widespread by the latter half of the 15th century.
They show the Virgin Mary and Archangel Gabriel in an Annunciation scene painted in grisaille, which because of their near-monochrome colouring give the impression that the figures are sculpted.
The texts are drawn from a variety of sources, in the central frames from biblical descriptions of the assumption, while the inner wings are lined with fragments of prayers dedicated to saints Michael and Catherine.
In this work, damaged coats of arms on the borders of the interior wings have been identified with the Giustiniani of Genoa – an influential albergo active from 1362 – who established trade links with Bruges as early as the mid-14th century.
[2] After Charles's fall and execution, the painting went to Paris and was owned by Eberhard Jabach, the Cologne-based banker and art dealer for Louis XIV and Cardinal Mazarin.
A year after Jabach's death in 1695, it passed to the Elector of Saxony, and next appears in a 1754 inventory of the Dresden Collection, attributed to Albrecht Dürer,[1] until the German historian Aloys Hirt in 1830 established it as a van Eyck.
That work echoes the central panel of the Dresden triptych in a number of aspects, including the dark green canopy, the figuration and positioning of Mary, her heavily-folded dress, the orange and brown pigments of the floor, the geometric carpet and the wooden carvings.
[10] The three inner panels comprise a typical sacra conversazione, a form established in Italy in the latter half of the 14th century with a patron saint presenting the donor, usually kneeling, to an enthroned "Deity or Mother of God".
[11] John Ward believes the rich and complex iconography and symbolic meaning van Eyck employed in his religious panels served to highlight the co-existence the artist saw between the spiritual and material worlds.
In his earlier paintings, subtle iconographical features – referred to as disguised symbolism – are typically woven into the work, as "relatively small, in the background, or in the shadow [details]".
Ward speculates the reduced size of the work or the wishes of the commissioner influenced this choice, or he "decided that he had exhausted the most interesting possibilities and ... much of his carefully planned symbolism went unappreciated by patrons or by viewers.
[7] The columns are painted using a variety of dark red, orange and grey pigments, a colour scheme which Peter Heath describes as lending to a "sense of airy silence".
[23] The Christ Child is naked and holds towards the donor a banderole[7] adorned with a phrase from the Gospel of Matthew (11:29), DISCITE A ME, QUIA MITIS SUM ET HUMILIS CORDE ("Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart").
"[25] This idea is in keeping with van Eyck's tendency in such portraits to present Mary as if she was an apparition materialising before the donor in response to his prayer and devotion.
[7] Their depictions are in keeping with the artist's evolving style: the aisles convey spaciousness, especially by the implied spaces out of view, while both saints subtly lean close to Mary.
[3] The two side panels are filled with light streaming through the windows that reflects off the saints' accoutrements, glinting from St. Michael's armour and St. Catherine's bejewelled steel sword.
She stands reading a book in "ravishing modesty",[1] with unbound blonde hair, which is topped with an elaborate jewelled crown very similar to that in the Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, combined with her rich blue gown and tabard of white draped ermine showing her as the princess she was.
[28] Like the woman in van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait she is "fashionably pear-shaped"; Heath describes her attire as "more dazzling than the Virgin's", mirroring St. Michael's splendid armour on the opposite panel.
[31] Michael is dressed in elaborately jewelled and coloured armour, his left arm holding his helmet,[22] while his right hand rests on the shoulder of the donor as he is presented to Mary.
He wears a gold ring on his right small finger,[19] and is dressed in a long olive-green houppelande,[2] at the time the height of fashion and an indicator of status within the Burgundian court.
[34] Unlike in van Eyck's earlier votive portraits the donor is positioned at a remove from the Marian apparition, and at a much smaller scale to Mary on a triptych wing.
The extract reads HIC EST ARCHANGELUS PRINCEPS MILITAE ANGELORUM CUIUS HONOR PRAESTAT BENEFICIA POPULORUM ET ORATARIO PERDUCIT AD REGNA COELORUM.
Molly Teasdale Smith believes the practice echoes the tradition of covering religious imagery with grey cloth during the then-46-day lenten period leading up to Easter.
[32] As with van Eyck's earlier paintings of interiors, the building is not based on a particular place, but is an imagined and idealised formation of what he viewed as a perfect and representational architectural space.
[42] Craig Harbison believes that because the interior is not based on an actual building, the viewer is not burdened by preconceptions, a device which perhaps opens up the painting's "physiological" impact.
[40] Van Eyck pays close attention to the saturating effects and gradations of the light, which enters from the left and spreads across the middle ranges of each panel.
[41] The triptych influenced Rogier van der Weyden's 1445–50 Seven Sacraments Altarpiece in a number of aspects, most obviously in its disregard of scale, especially with Mary's size relative to the other figures and surrounding architecture.
[2] This belief has been fed by the triptych's similarity to Giovanni Mazone's Virgin and Child altarpiece in Pontremoli, Tuscany, which may place it in the Italian region of Liguria at latest by the end of the 15th century.
[45] In the early 1800s, Frances Weale attempted to place Michele Giustiniani as the donor,[22] however later historical research has been unable to verify his presence in Bruges around 1437, and he seems to have returned to Italy by 1430.
This process revealed the ALC IXH XAN inscription on the inner moulding of the central frame in front of the tiled floor when a coat of brown paint was stripped away.
