Painting ID:: 63861
St John Altarpiece 1455-60 Oil on oak panel, 77 x 48 cm Staatliche Museen, Berlin The left panel depicts the Naming of John the Baptist. Elisabeth lies in bed in the background after giving birth, while the pregnant Mary, the future mother of Jesus, brings the newborn child to his father Zacharias. Zacharias had been struck dumb for his doubts when an angel told him, during service in the temple, that he was to be the father of a son (this scene is shown in the lowest archivolt relief on the left). He therefore has to write down the name of the child. Mary, as the more important saint, is distinguished from Zacharias and Elisabeth by her aureole. The side panels of the St John Altarpiece do not merely show the beginning and end of the Baptist's earthly life. The parallels between the pictorial motifs also express moral conflict. On the left, the chaste Virgin Mary holds the newborn baby in her arms; she and Zacharias are looking at one another gravely, aware of the significance of the event.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: St John Altarpiece (left panel) Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-329299.jpg
Painting ID:: 63864
St Joseph 1445 Oil on oak panel, 21 x 18,3 cm Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon This fragment was sawn out of the same large altarpiece as the Mary Magdalene in the National Gallery, London. The aged Joseph stood behind the Magdalene; the lower part of his body can still be seen in the fragment. The exterior of the building in which the scene took place was richly ornamented with Gothic decoration, like a church.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: St Joseph Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-828365.jpg
Painting ID:: 63865
Lamentation 1441 Wood, 32,2 x 47,2 cm Mus?es Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels The latest studies attribute this Lamentation directly to Rogier van der Weyden, a pupil of the Master of Fl?malle and one of the most important and influential of the Flemish Primitives. The style and pictorial qualities of the painting match those of other Van der Weyden panels that are documented by archival material. A few authors, however, believe this Lamentation to be by his workshop, because of the various versions that exist of this composition, some of which have definitely been produced by assistants. Van der Weyden had so much work that he left the reproduction of popular compositions like the Lamentation to the other painters in his workshop. Dendrochronological research - the dating of a wooden panel based on the growth rings - places this version at around 1441, i.e. relatively early in the painter's career. Depicted is the lamentation of Christ under the cross, a scene that does not appear as such in the Bible. To the left we see John the Evangelist, barefoot and robed in a red mantle. His right hand supports the Saviour's upper body, which is resting against the Virgin's knee. With his left hand he is comforting Mary. The Mother of God supports her Son's limp head and presses her cheek against his. At Christ's feet Mary Magdalen kneels in veneration, alongside her an ointment pot, her customary attribute. The skull in the foreground refers to the location, Golgotha, literally "place of the skull". Apocryphal texts frequently interpret this as the skull of Adam, whose fall brought death on the human race, and whose original sin Christ died to expiate. The withered trees to the left and right are also taken from medieval Passion stories, certain of which tell that all trees withered when the Saviour gave up the spirit. The emotional intensity of the Lamentation witnesses to the influence of 'devotio moderna', with this type of tableau intended to move the viewer to compassion. Closer contemplation of the Passion would then lead to the imitation of Christ, or place the viewer into the right frame of mind to receive communion.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: Lamentation Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-369476.jpg
Painting ID:: 63866
Portrait of a Young Woman 1440 Silverpoint on prepared paper, 166 x 116 mm British Museum, London The finest of the drawings ascribed to Rogier is the Portrait of a Young Woman. In its freshness of observation and lively expression the drawing comes closest to the painted portrait of another young woman (Staatliche Museen, Berlin), although in contrast to that painting - probably the earliest of the independent portraits by Rogier still extant - the draftsman has modeled the face with much greater plasticity, using light and shade to make shapes like the eyelids appear more rounded and fleshier. This factor in turn links the drawing closely to a portrait of a woman ascribed to the Master of Fl?malle, now in the National Gallery, London, and to the faces in Rogier's earlier Deposition (Prado, Madrid). The strong, bright reflections on the shaded areas of the sitter's throat and cheeks also adopt a method frequently used by Jan van Eyck to heighten the sense of three-dimensionality. By comparison with the chiaroscuro and the powerful three-dimensional style of the drawing, the painted face of the young woman in the portrait appear generally more linear - paradoxically, one might almost say more like a drawing. The draftsman's intention of placing several strong contrasts of light and shade side by side also matches the effects in the Deposition. Like the shaded side of the head of the Virgin, the right-hand side of the portrait drawing shows the alternation of light and very dark areas, and the artist has even shaded the headdress heavily next to the area of reflected light on the sitter's jaw line just below her ear, though this effect is illogical, since if the head-dress is to reflect light it ought to be lit there itself. However, the darkness in the outer area of the drawing, emphasizing the fold at the back of the head-dress, is a genuinely distinctive feature, producing the effect of heavy shadow. There are no such heavy shadows in any painted portrait by Rogier; this pictorial device, creating a sense of space around the figure, first appears in painting around the middle of the century in works by the artist Petrus Christus, who was active in Bruges. Here the draftsman may have created the shadows before drawing the sitter herself, or he may have placed them there to make the back of the headdress retreat into the background - an effect that would also be achieved by the uniform dark ground of a painted portrait. The immediacy of this portrait gives the impression that it was drawn from life. Such an impression is further supported by the fact that only the head and the complicated head-dress are executed in detail, while the upper part of the sitter's body is only lightly indicated; her dress with its patterns of folds could be added later, and leaving it out while the woman herself was being portrayed would have spared her the tedium of sitting for the artist. Such details could easily enough be copied from a painting, but the visible part of the woman's body appears rather awkwardly executed. The right hand on the edge of the picture is particularly jarring, and does not quite connect up anatomically with her shoulder. It is complex in structure, but only half shown, and its clear outline does not make it look like a study from nature. Perhaps the artist completed the lower areas of the portrait later, using a work already in his stock, and experimenting with the composition of his planned painting. All Early Netherlandish portraits were certainly based on drawings from life, for the long process of painting would not have allowed the artist to work from a living model. The Portrait of a Young Woman, outstanding as both a drawing and a portrait, must be one of the very few examples of this genre to have been preserved. Since over and beyond these qualities, the drawing shows similarities with Rogier's painted portraits in its presentation, and with his Deposition in the manner of depicting a head, it could well be by his own hand. It was probably done quite close to the time of the great altarpiece for the Archers of Leuven, while the other (painted) Portrait of a Young Woman must have been executed rather later.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: Portrait of a Young Woman Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - graphics : portrait new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-656378.jpg
Painting ID:: 63867
St Catherine 1445 Oil on oak panel, 21,7 x 18,6 cm Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon This fragment was sawn out of the same large altarpiece as the Mary Magdalene in the National Gallery, London. The face of the saint, probably painted by an assistant, shows weaknesses in the drawing.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: St Catherine Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-748694.jpg
Painting ID:: 63868
St Columba Altarpiece 1455 Oil on oak panel Alte Pinakothek, Munich The picture shows a detail of the Presentation in the Temple, the right panel of the altarpiece executed for the St Columba church in Cologne. According to Mosaic law, all firstborn sons had to be presented to God in the temple. When Mary and Joseph carried out this duty, the pious old Simeon recognized the child as the Redeemer whom, according to a prophecy, he was to see before he died. He thanks God with the words, "Lord, now lettest thou they servant depart in peace, according to thy word." The old prophetess Anna, who also recognizes the Christ, is standing behind Simeon. The servant behind Mary is holding two doves for the sacrifice of purification that followed childbirth. Traces of the late Romanesque church of St. Gereon in Cologne seem to have entered into the architecture of the temple on the right wing - the polygonal rotunda, the gallery, and the small buttresses on the outside.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: St Columba Altarpiece (detail) Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-743877.jpg
Painting ID:: 63869
Entombment of Christ 1450 Oil on oak panel, 110 x 96 cm Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence It is believed - but without absolute certainty - that this Entombment is the centre of a polyptych which was acquired by Leonello d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Study at Belfiore, when the painter went in pilgrimage to Rome in 1449, the year before the Jubilee. It is however more probable that this work - which is also mentioned as being in the Medicean Villa at Careggi - was done in 1449-50 at Florence, because it derives its compositive formula from the Deposition by Fra Angelico which can be seen in the predella of the altarpiece of St Mark in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. This painting, in a Renaissance frame decorated with pilasters, adorned the altar of the private chapel of the Medici villa in Careggi, near Florence. Cosimo de' Medici (1389 -1464) had built this country residence around the middle of the century, and there are good reasons to suppose that the Medici family, who must have owned Rogier's small panel of the Madonna (St?delsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt), also commissioned the larger painting. The work closely follows the Entombment of Christ which was part of an altarpiece by Fra Angelico, painted around 1440 for the Florentine monastery church of San Marco. Its influence is evident in the display of the dead man, shown almost standing, with Mary and John holding his arms one on each side, and more particularly in the hill with the tomb in the rock, which runs entirely counter to Northern European tradition. Fra Angelico's altarpiece, to which the picture of the Entombment, much imitated in Florence, also belonged, was itself an important donation by the Medici family. It is improbable that Rogier van der Weyden saw Fra Angelico's work by chance on his Italian journey, and then reworked it for his own Medici altarpiece - particularly as we do not know whether he passed through Florence at all on his way to Rome. The model was more probably prescribed for him by his patrons when the work was commissioned. Very likely they sent the master a sketch of the work they had donated, telling him to follow it. Such clear guidelines from Florence would also explain why the painting was executed in almost square format, unusual for Netherlandish works but common in Italy and suitable for the architectural Renaissance setting. The patrons who commissioned the work will have been as much struck by the fine, realistic detail of the painting of the Lamentation as by the intense emotion of the faces. These qualities, and the slight asymmetry that suited late Gothic taste, distinguish the picture in significant respects from the work of Fra Angelico. A two-dimensionality at least matching that of the St John Altarpiece (Staatliche Museen, Berlin), and not at all in line with the artistic ideals of the Renaissance, is particularly noticeable in the Magdalene kneeling at the front, her limbs compressed into the same plane. The painting can thus be associated with Rogier's late works coming after the St. Columba Altarpiece (Alte Pinakothek, Munich).Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: Entombment of Christ Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-379624.jpg
Painting ID:: 63870
Portrait Diptych of Laurent Froimont 1460s Oil on oak panel, 49,3 x 31,5 cm Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp The reverse side of the portrait of Laaurent Froimont represents St Lawrence. The name of the subject of the portrait was deduced from this grisaille: St Lawrence (Laurent), with the instrument of his martyrdom, the gridiron, could be the patron after whom the sitter was named, the word "Froimont" on the scroll being the man's family name. However, this is not certain, and no one called Laurent Froimont has yet been traced.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: Portrait Diptych of Laurent Froimont (reverse side) Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : other new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-738686.jpg
Painting ID:: 63871
St John Altarpiece 1455-60 Oil on oak panel Staatliche Museen, Berlin The body of the executed man is part of the foreground group, and the executioner can set his sword against John's right shoulder, shown in a flat plane. At the same time, however, two mourners who belong to the background are placed directly above the cellar stairs where the dead man is lying, and a figure diminished to about one-third of the size of the foreground figures appears to be standing only a little farther back from them.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: St John Altarpiece (detail) Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-686559.jpg
Painting ID:: 63872
St John Altarpiece 1455-60 Oil on oak panel Staatliche Museen, Berlin As a lascivious worldly beauty, Salome wears a magnificent dress in the fashion of French princesses, with exotic decorative items including the pointed head-dress. The background shows the scene of the banquet in which Salome's mother, Herodias, stabs the decapitated head of the Baptist in her hatred for him.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: St John Altarpiece (detail) Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-548855.jpg
Painting ID:: 63873
St Luke Drawing the Portrait of the Madonna 1450 Oil on oak panel, 138 x 110 cm Alte Pinakothek, Munich This painting is closely based on Jan van Eyck's Madonna with Chancellor Rolin. Van der Weyden uses the same cubic space as Van Eyck, with an opening supported by two columns through which the main scene opens out onto a landscape in the background. There exist three other examples of this composition, identical apart from a few details, of which the one in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, since its restoration in 1932-33, is regarded by most art historians as the original (other examples in St Petersburg, Hermitage, and Bruges, Groeningemuseum).Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: St Luke Drawing the Portrait of the Madonna Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-638558.jpg
Painting ID:: 63874
St Luke Drawing the Portrait of the Madonna 1450 Oil on oak panel Alte Pinakothek, Munich Through the opening supported by two columns, the main scene opens out onto a landscape in the background.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: St Luke Drawing the Portrait of the Madonna Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-592946.jpg
Painting ID:: 63875
Scupstoel 1447-50 Pen over chalk tracing on paper, 298 x 425 mm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The curious drawing of the Scupstoel is connected not with a painting but with a sculpture, more precisely the relief ornamentation of a capital. This capital belonged the pillars on the lower floor of the west wing of the Brussels town hall, built from around 1447 to 1450, and although severely damaged it is still extant. Exactly reflecting the motif of the drawing, a carving of men shoveling chairs (a literal translation of the word "Scupstoel" = shovel chair) runs in high relief around the entire capital. The drawing represents a development of the curved surface of the conical architectural member. It cannot have been actually copied from the relief, for a draftsman wishing to record the different aspects of the capital would have either drawn the figures individually or shown the whole scene as a flat strip. The drawing must thus have been connected with the design of the capital, with its special manner of surface projection corresponding to the requirements of the sculptors carving the relief. However, the drawing, which is relatively well preserved in spite of its large dimensions, cannot have been the actual model, which would have been worn out with intensive use. It seems very likely that the Brussels city council turned to their painter Rogier with a commission to design the capital. He must have prepared the basic design of the scene, and both the model followed by the sculptors and the extant drawing were presumably then copied from that design. Their author would have been an assistant in Rogier's workshop, perhaps one of the painters who participated in work on the panels of scenes from the life of St. Hubert (National Gallery, London), in which the faces of certain figures in the background are strongly reminiscent of the heads of the shoveling men. Perhaps Rogier himself merely sketched out the design and then directed his assistants to prepare a more detailed drawing as a model for the city council who had commissioned it. Or perhaps his design passed into the hands of the council, and he had a copy made by his assistants for the workshop stocks.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: Scupstoel Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - graphics : other new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-947927.jpg
Painting ID:: 63876
Visitation 1445 Oil on oak panel, 57 x 36 cm Museum der Bildenden K?nste, Leipzig This small Visitation, probably intended as a single panel, is related to the Miraflores Altarpiece, not in subject but in style. Comparatively speaking, it is a narrative picture, showing a definite event in its appropriate surroundings. Shortly after the Annunciation, Mary visits her cousin Elisabeth, who despite her advanced age has miraculously become pregnant, and has been carrying the future John the Baptist for six months. The picture illustrates the circumstances of the meeting described in St. Luke's Gospel much more clearly than many other earlier depictions. For example, the landscape divided up by paths behind the Virgin Mary, from which she seems to be approaching small figures of people riding and walking indicate that it is passable - show that she has traveled a long way to visit her cousin. Elisabeth lives in hilly country, represented by the hill with the complex of fortress-like buildings outside which her husband Zacharias is playing with a dog. The open courtyard gateway, and even more so the path dynamically winding downward, show that the pregnant older woman has hurried respectfully to meet the young girl as Mary takes the last few steps. Each of them acknowledges the miracle of pregnancy and is laying a hand on the other's belly, while Elisabeth's outstretched arm and pale hand, shown against Mary's dark blue dress, leave us in no doubt which is the more important child. The gestures, at once tender and eloquent, are typical of Rogier's expressive style. The picture is also closely related to the version of the same subject on the right wing of the Annunciation Triptych (Galleria Sabauda, Turin) which is of the same width but considerably taller and thus makes a much narrower composition. The smaller version therefore appears less dramatic by comparison; Elisabeth's house does not tower over her so much. It is possible that an older design by Rogier was the model for both painting. These hands and facial types, the figures, and such features as the modeling of the forms resemble those of the Miraflores Altarpiece. Dendrochronology provides a useful lead to the date of the Visitation, for the wooden panel used comes from the same piece of timber as a part of the panels of the picture known as the Abegg Triptych (Riggisberg near Berne), which was painted in Rogier's workshop and can be dated to around 1445.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: Visitation Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-594294.jpg
Painting ID:: 63878
Portrait of a Man 1450 Oil on panel, 75 x 50 cm Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp This portrait is probably a copy from c. 1500 of an original by Rogier van der Weyden which, judging by the fashion of the clothes, was executed around or shortly after the middle of the century. An unusual feature is the elegant low neck, which makes the face seem small. Possibly this, like the clock, and the inscriptions reminding the viewer of the transience of life, was a deviation from the original.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: Portrait of a Man Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : portrait new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-964282.jpg
Painting ID:: 63879
Descent from the Cross 1460 Pen over chalk drawing on paper, 240 x 357 mm Mus?e du Louvre, Paris Paintings in the style of Rogier van der Weyden that are no longer extant are also recorded in several drawings not from the workshop of the Brussels town painter. Among the most notable is this Descent from the Cross, frequently said to derive from an original by Rogier himself, and sometimes even ascribed to Robert Campin. Surrounded by Christ's mourning friends, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are carrying the body just taken down from the Cross to the tomb. The very unusual outer area, with raised sections at the sides where angels hover with the nails and the crown of thorns, may refer to the place where the painting connected with this drawing was installed - perhaps it was to be placed below a tall window. The composition obviously appealed to contemporary taste, and was copied in painting and sculpture several times. It shares important elements with Rogier's most influential work, the Deposition (Prado, Madrid): there are considerable similarities in the construction of the scene, which again is transferred to an altar shrine, and in some of the figures, particularly those of the bearded Joseph of Arimathea and Mary Magdalene. The Virgin Mary and the flying angels, on the other hand, are more like the corresponding figures in the Crucifixion Triptych (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), and the figure of St John resembles his counterpart in the Seven Sacraments Altarpiece (Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp). However, while in a work like the St Columba Altarpiece (Alte Pinakothek, Munich) the figures, taken from various different pre-existing models, are merged into a meaningful whole, there are discrepancies in the Descent from the Cross. Joseph of Arimathea seems to be standing still as he holds the corpse, but the legs of Nicodemus suggest that he is walking away, an action that clashes with the Virgin's heartfelt embrace of Christ. And the Magdalene is obviously shown twice, as the woman with the vessel of ointment - the saint's attribute - standing on the extreme right, veiled as in the Crucifixion Triptych, and as the figure of the Magdalene from the Deposition, identifiable as the former sinner by her low-cut, expensive dress. These inconsistencies cannot be reconciled with Rogier's careful, confident style, and the drawing cannot therefore be considered a copy from a work conceived by him. In fact it is not yet clear whether it is a copy at all, or whether it may be a sketch for a design.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: Descent from the Cross Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - graphics : study new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-659435.jpg
Painting ID:: 63880
Crucifixion Diptych 1460 OIL on oak panel, 180,3 x 92,3 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, PhiladelphiaArtist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: Crucifixion Diptych (right panel) Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-475728.jpg
Painting ID:: 63881
Head of the Madonna 1460 Silverpoint on prepared paper, 128 x 109 mm Mus?e du Louvre, Paris The finely drawn Head of the Madonna is obviously not from life. It represents a type of the Virgin very frequent in Rogier's work, and comparable to the panel of the Madonna that was one leaf of a diptych, with the other showing Jean Gros (Mus?e des Beaux-Arts, Tournai, and Art Institute, Chicago). A similar painting must have been the model for this drawing, which executes the face in fine detail, translating colour values into black and white, for instance in the lips, but breaks sharply with this precision where the head-dress begins; the folds of the cloth are merely suggested by a few outlines obviously copied from an existing model. In all its details, including the folds of the headdress, the drawing resembles the head of a half length painted Madonna from the circle around Rogier, now on permanent loan to the Kurpfalzisches Museum, Heidelberg. It could either precede the drawing, which may have been from Rogier's workshop, or have been painted from it. The Head of the Madonna, however, conveys an impression of what some of the drawings in the stocks of Rogier's workshop may have been like.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: Head of the Madonna Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - graphics : study new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-737494.jpg
Painting ID:: 63882
Sforza Triptych 1460 Oil on oak panel, 53,7 x 19 cm (each) Mus?es Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels The exterior of the Sforza Triptych depicts St Jerome and St George. The grisaille paintings represent unpainted but scenically elaborated stone reliefs in niches. The knightly St George, who is just killing the dragon, probably has a special relationship to the donor of the altarpiece, shown as a knight in armor.Artist:WEYDEN, Rogier van der Title: Sforza Triptych (exterior) Painted in 1401-1450 , Flemish - - painting : religious new21/WEYDEN, Rogier van der-544762.jpg