Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2008

Abstract

The article considers two sculpted wall memorials from the Burgundian Netherlands that can be closely linked to the painter Rogier van der Weyden. The first was commissioned by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, for the Franciscan convent church in Brussels in commemoration of two long-deceased Brabantine duchesses to whom he was distantly related. It was destroyed by the Calvinists but a series of payments of 1440 records the various craftsmen responsible for its creation, including Rogier van der Weyden, who polychromed the sculpture and painted the duke’s coats of arms on its wings. It is argued that the memorial should be seen in the context of Philip’s efforts to emphasise his legitimacy as ruler of Brabant. The second memorial, which also had wings, came from Saint-Nicolas church, Tournai, and commemorated the merchant Jehan du Sart (d.1456) and his wife. The memorial is based on a design derived from various Rogierian Nativity paintings and it is proposed that Rogier’s nephew, the painter Louis le Duc, who arrived in Tournai in 1453 having presumably trained with his uncle in Brussels, may have been responsible for the memorial’s design.

Publication Information

immediations. The Courtauld Institute of Art Journal of Postgraduate Research

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