Early Flemish Portraits 1425-1525: The Metropolitan Museum of Art ...

with a chiseled Latin inscription that translates:
"Petrus Christus made me, 1446." The
date is included asymmetrically at the right, as
if it were an afterthought. Besides the strong,
frontal light from the right, there is a second
light source within, from the rear left, that
illuminates the sitter's space, which has been
developed as the corner of a shallow, confined
interior. With clear, steel-blue eyes, the sitter,
like Jan de Leeuw, engages the viewer with a
28. The exceptional nature and intimate
quality of both the Portrait
of Jan de Leeuw (fig. 27) and
Petrus Christus's Portrait of a
Carthusian, dated 1446, cause one
to suspect that the sitters were close
friends or relatives of the artists
and that the portraits were not
commissioned but rather were made
for presentation. The Carthusian's
shaved upper lip and hairstyle indicate
that he was a lay brother,
not a monk. Christus portrayed a
Carthusian on at least one other
occasion. A small painting by him
in the Staatliche Museen Preussischer
Kulturbesitz, Berlin-
Dahlem, shows Jan Vos, prior of
the Carthusian monastery of
Genadedal (near Bruges) from
1441 to 1450, kneeling before the
Virgin and Child. 112 x 8 in.
The Jules Bache Collection, 1949
(49.7.19)
37