Braque Triptych

The Braque Triptych is the only surviving devotional work by van der Weyden known to be painted for private rather than public display.

[7] In the right hand panel Mary Magdalene is depicted in sumptuous and highly detailed dress in an image considered to be one of the finest of van der Weyden's female portraits.

When the wings are closed across the central panel, the exterior reveals a memento mori[10] or vanitas motif of a skull and cross which is decorated with Latin inscriptions.

The outer left hand wing shows a yellow-brown skull leaning against a broken brick or stone fragment[11] alongside the coat of arms of the Braque family – a sheaf of wheat – seen on the upper right portion of the panel.

[1][12] The panel is one of the earliest known examples of a skull used in a vanitas, while the broken brick, cross and inscriptions present imagery of death and decay typical of the genre.

[13] Brick in such works usually symbolise ruin, either of buildings or a dynasties, in this case given the inclusion of the Braque family crest, it can be assumed to serve as reminder to members of the latter.

The words read as o mors quam amara est memoria tua homini pacem habenti in substantiis suis.

viro quieto et cuius viae directae sunt in omnibus et adhuc valenti accipere cibum (O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that hath peace in his possessions!

The approximate dating of the triptych is based the death of Jehan Braque in 1452,[15] and the fact that the interior panels show an Italian influence, and is considered one of the first of his later more austere mature period works; van der Wyeden had visited Italy in 1450.

At the time it was a record price paid for a van der Weyden; J. P. Morgan had earlier spent $100,000 on the Annunciation now in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.