Mérode Altarpiece
The many elements of religious symbolism include the lily and fountain (symbolising the purity of Mary), and the Holy Spirit represented by the rays of light coming through from the central panel's left hand window.
The triptych is a founding and important work in the then emerging late Gothic, Early Netherlandish style, and has been described as a "milestone between two periods; it at once summarizes the medieval tradition and lays the foundation for the development of modern painting".
[2] It is usually accepted as belonging to a group of paintings associated with the Master of Flémalle, assumed to be Robert Campin.
He describes the Mérode as "incoherent in design", lacking Campin's usual trait of spatial continuity, as found in the Seilern Triptych.
[10] The serenity of the works is achieved, in part, through the dominance of pale, opaque white, red, and blue hues.
[10] The panel is one of the earliest representations of the Annunciation to Mary in a contemporary Northern European interior,[10] which appears to be a dining room.
[11] The colors in the upper part of the central panel are dominated by the cool grays of the plaster and the brown of the timber wall,[12] while the lower half is mostly of warmer and deeper brownish greens and reds.
[2] Art historians suggest that the success of the panel is due to the contrast between the warm reds of the Virgin's robe and the pale blue hues of the archangel Gabriel's vestment.
The jug contains a series of enigmatic letters in Latin and Hebraic, deciphered by some art historians as De Campyn, which they presume as the artist's signature.
[16] It has been suggested that the book reflects the Carthusian Ludolf of Saxony's idea of the secluded life of the Virgin - that she earlier lived with "the Holy Scriptures as her sole companion".
[10] The donor and his wife are shown kneeling in prayer are in the left panel, looking through a half-open door into the Virgin's Hortus conclusus.
[15] The panel is the more striking as the door leading into the Virgin's chamber is wide open, hugely presumptuous for even a mid-fifteenth century commission, and suggesting access to the gates of heaven.
[24][25] Engelbrecht translates from German as "angel brings", while Scrynmaker means "cabinet maker", the latter perhaps influencing the choice of Joseph in the right hand panel.
Joseph is shown with the tools of his craft, visible implements include an ax, saw, rod, and a small footstool sitting before a fire of burning logs.
"[26] Isaiah's words were intended as incentatory and revolutionary, were followed by a treatise for the salvation of Israel, and protested against an Assyrian king he considered boorish and vainglorious.
[2] He works on a mouse trap, probably a symbol of the cross at the Crucifixion,[28] in that it represents an imagined but literal capture of the Devil, said to have held a man in ransom because of the sin of Adam.
Similar debates exist for many Early Netherlandish paintings, and a number of the details seen for the first time here reappear in later Annunciations by other artists.
[19][25] The lion finials on the bench may have a symbolic role (referring to the Seat of Wisdom, or throne of Solomon) – this feature is often seen in other paintings, religious or secular (like Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait).
The triptych was owned by the aristocratic Belgian Arenberg and Mérode families from 1820 to 1849 before reaching the art market, and has been in the collection of the Cloisters, New York since 1956.
Its purchase was funded by John D. Rockefeller Jr. and was described at the time as a "major event for the history of collecting in the United States".
