Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele

The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele, Oil on wood, 141 x 176.5 cm (incl framw), 1434-36. Groeningemuseum, Bruges.

The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele (French: La Madone au Chanoine Van der Paele) is a large oil on oak panel painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck, commissioned in the autumn 1434 and completed in 1436. The painting is thought to have been intended both to celebrate the still living donor's dedication to his church and also to have been intended to serve as an epitaph for the donor's burial church, St. Donatian's Cathedral in Bruges. It displays complex and sophisticated spatial and allegorical arrangement, and is considered to depict one of the finest examples of Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting, and pays an obvious debt to illuminated manuscript. The painting makes innovative use of illusionism and is widely considered one of van Eyck's most fully realised and ambitious work after his 1432 Ghent Altarpiece.

Created as an epitaph for a clergyman from Bruges, Joris van der Paele, the work is one of the earliest known Sacra conversazione. It shows the Virgin Mary, with the child Jesus on her lap, seated on a throne decorated with carved representations of Adam and Eve, prefigurations of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus, and other Old Testament scenes. Mary is positioned at the center of a tight semicircular and sacred interior space with Saint George (van der Paele's name saint) to the right and Saint Donatian, patron saint of Bruges' collegiate church, dressed in the pomp of a medieval knight's armour, to the left.

Both saints are named in the Latin inscriptions on the lower border of the imitation bronze frame. George is shown lifting his cap in respect and presenting the elderly Canon van der Paele – the painting's donor – to Mary. Van der Paele is dressed in white surplice and piously reads from a book of hours.

Canon Joris van der Paeler

Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, c. 1435, Musée du Louvre. Like van der Paele's panel, this work was created as an eventual epitaph for the donor's burial church, in this case for Nicolas Rolin's family chapel in Notre Dame-du-Chastel in Autun.

The panel's donor, Joris van der Paele, was born in Bruges c 1370 and spent his early career as a lay papal scribe in Rome before returning as a man of wealth to his native city in 1425. He was appointed on his return to the position of Canon's Benefice at the Saint Donatian's collegiate church. An illness in 1434 left him unable to fulfill his duties and to consider both his mortality and position as canonship to the church. In response he endowed a chaplainy at the church and commissioned this work from van Eyck. His bequest allowed for a requiem mass for the dead, a daily mass and three votive masses a week. A second chaplaincy in 1441 was centered on prayers for his family. The inscriptions on the lower imitation frame refer to the donation; "Joris van der Paele, canon of this church, had this work made by painter Jan van Eyck. And he founded two chaplaincies here in the choir of the Lord. 1434. He only completed it in 1436, however."

Van Eyck's painting was donated to the church either in 1436 or on van der Paele's death in 1443. It remained in the church until it was demolished in 1779. Most likely the work was first hung in the church nave as an accompaniment to an altar for Saints Peter and Paul used for memorial masses for van der Paele and his family. It was not installed to the main altar until after the Iconoclasm of 1566.

Style and format

Formally, van Eych departs from the then conventional format of central and northern European epitaphs. He has abandoned the strict symmetry and clear theological basis of the typical sacra conversazione to create a work that stands up to a number of interpretations and contains a number of layers of reality. This is especially achieved through the carved figures of the throne which range from old to new testament figurations, but all of which seemingly allude to the Crucifixion (on the left hand side of the panel) or the resurrection (on the right hand side). The work has an overall sculptural look, while the throne, windows, arches and hanging canvases borrow from the conventions of Romanesque architecture.

As with his c. 1435 Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, the artist creates a sense of spiritual intimacy between Donor and the divine. This is seen most obviously in the donors physical proximity to Virgin and saints, which according to art historian Jeffrey Smith, "Mentally and pictorially [breaches] the barriers between heaven and earth" and implies the "patrons are visually immortalized as meriting the Virgin and Child's personal attention." The intimacy is further achieved in small details such as the overlap between donor and saint when Saint George is shown both cast a shadow on the donor and to have accidentally have stepped on his surplice as he leans forward to introduce the canon to the Virgin. However, despite the closness and proximity, in keeping with the conventions of early Netherlandish art, van der Paele does not look directly at any of the heavenly figures; observing a element of social and spiritual decorum.

Although van Eyck brings a high degree of realism to the depictions of the figures and the minutely detailed clothes and the architecture of the room and windows, the setting is of an imaginary event created and arranged to flatter the donor. The painting is designed as a representation of a church space, with Mary occupying the area where the altarpiece would usually be positioned. In keeping with the convention of the era, van Eyck has Mary representing the altar while the child symbolises both the host and eucharist; a common allusion in early Netherlandish art indicating that the panel was likely intended as attendant to celebrations of the mass.

Description

Madonna in the Church, 1438, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. This work is considered the apotheosis of van Eyck's idealisations of the Virgin where she is now, according to art historian Till-Holger Borchert, "not the Madonna in a church, but the metaphor of Mary as the Church."

The painting captures a moment when Joris van der Paeler, deep in meditation and prayer, puts his glasses on his book of prayers to pauses and reflect on a passage he has jsut read. At that moment the Virgin, Child and two saints appear before him as embodiments of his prayer.

Van Eyck shows the Virgin and Child enthroned below a minutely detailed and extravagantly decorated brocade baldachin. Donatian is positioned to left, the more significant position in heraldic terms, and reflective of his status of patron saint of the Bruges collegiate. To the right Saint George stands clad in helmet and armour. He raises his helmet and left hand to introduce the donor, who kneels with his prayer book and glasses in his hands, gazing straight ahead with an absent and somewhat befuddled expression. The presentation of van der Paele as distracted and somewhat absent minded is intentional, and indicates that he is, according to art historian Bret Rothstein, "disconnected from the perceptible world" and fully absorbed in the spiritual realm. This notion is reinforced by his glasses, which allude to fallibility of the human senses.

Van Eyck's mastery at handling oil can be seen in the number and variety of brush strokes used to achieve both a high degree of realism and minute details. The detail is especially noticeable in the rendering of threads in Saint Donatian's cope, in the weave of the Oriental carpet, and in the stubble and veins visible on van der Paele's head. Mary's robe is embroidered with Latin text that recalls a similar sentiment to van Eyck's Berlin Madonna in the Church and is taken from the Wisdom of Solomon 7:29: "For she is more beautiful than the sun, and excels every constellation of the stars. Compared with the light she is found to be superior".

van Eyck's Dresden Triptych, c. 1437 is also a donor portrait but far more grandiose, being a triptych with the donor removed to a side panel while the focus of work is on the detail of the Gothic architecture of the cathedral space.

The throne contains a number of Old Testament carved figures, most notably representations of Adam and Eve, on the upper arms, while the legs contains a number of Old Testament scenes prefiguring events from the Life of Christ.

As with his 1434 Arnolfini Portrait artist makes innovative use of reflection. The Virgin and child can be seen in the reflection of Saint George's helmet, while van Eyck alludes to his artistry by showing his own reflection in the knight's buckler. The artist is depicted standing at his easel, dressed in a red turban, similar to that seen in possible self-portrait Portrait of a Man of 1433, today in the National Gallery, London.

The panel is still with its original oak frame. Each side bear Latin inscriptions; Donatian is described as having "Enjoy[ed] the Glory of God", while George has "Triumphed over Death". The upper border of the frame contains words from the Book of Wisdom, comparing the Mary to an "unspotted mirror".

Provenance and attribution

The painting was acquired, along with a great many other Netherlandish and Flemish works, by the Musée du Louvre around 1794 during plundering of the estates of aristocrats during the French revolutionary army's occupation of Southern Netherlands. Other works acquired in this way include the center panels of van Eyck's own Ghent Altarpiece, as well as Hans Memling's Moreel Triptych and Gerard David's 'Justice of Cambyses. Many, including the 'van der Paele panel, were returned to Bruges in 1816. The return of work however became entangled in a dispute between the local French and national Dutch speaking officials of Bruges over control and ownership.

The panel was first attributed to van Eyck in 1847 by the German art historian Gustav Friedrich Waagen. Netherlandish art of van Eyck's time had been unfashionable for centuries, and while it was now going through a process of rediscovery, there was scant historical record available to link painters with works. Waagen based his assessment of the inscriptions on the frame, the "explicitly realistic" style he had come to associate with van Eyck, as well as the evident skill in blending hues. However, Waagen was not especially impressed by the panel, he described it as "difficult to enjoy". Like other critics of his era was more inclined towards the understated and 'chaste' style of Memling. He wrote that he found the Virgin "of a rare ugliness", while Saint George appeared to him to be "by no means saintly character".

Gallery

• 
  The Christ child
• 
  Madonna and Child
• 
  Saint Donatian guiding donor Canon van der Paele
• 
  Detail of an engraving to the left of the Virgin's throne
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  Representation of Eve shown on the arm of the throne
• 
  Detail from the right hand side of the throne

Sources

• Borchert, Till-Holger. Van Eych. London: Taschen, 2008. ISBN 3-8228-5687-1
• Borchert, Till-Holger. Van Eych to Durer: The Influence of Early Netherlandish painting on European Art, 1430-1530. London: Thames & Hudson, 2011. ISBN 978-0-500-23883-7
• Harbison, Craig. Jan van Eyck: the play of realism. London: Reaktion Books, 1997. ISBN 0-9484-6279-5
• Huerta, Robert. Giants of Delft: Johannes Vermeer and the Natural Philosophers: The Parallel Search for Knowledge during the Age of Discovery. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2003. ISBN 1-6114-8179-2
• Ridderbos, Bernhard; Van Buren, Anne; Van Veen, Henk. Early Netherlandish Paintings: Rediscovery, Reception and Research. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-89236-816-0
• Rothstein, Bret. Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting. Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-5218-3278-0
• Smith, Jeffrey Chips. The Northern Renaissance (Art and Ideas). Phaidon Press, 2004. ISBN 0-7148-3867-5