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

Half-Length Devotional Portraits
he early Flemish portraits at the Museum
that remain to be considered appear at first
to be independent portraits but were, in
fact, parts of diptychs or triptychs that included
a religious subject, usually a halflength
Virgin and Child. Such works-the
Museum's Portrait of a Man by Hugo van der
Goes (see p. 62), for instance-can be recognized
by the sitter's devotional attitude, with
hands clasped in prayer. Whereas half-length
independent and full-length donor portraits
were as common in Italy as in Flanders during
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, halflength
devotional portraits were peculiar to
northern Europe. Since Hulin de Loo's reconstruction
in 1923/24 of the earliest surviving
diptych of this type, Rogier van der Weyden's
Virgin and Child with Jean Gros of about 1450
(figs. 36, 37), the form has been presumed to
have been an invention of that artist. Recently,
it has been observed, however, that inventories
of 1404 and 1420 mention a half-length
diptych, now lost, showing the Virgin and
Child adored by Philip the Bold, first duke of
Burgundy, and his son and successor, John the
Fearless; evidently the form was known at
least as early as about 1400. Nevertheless,
Rogier may have been responsible for popularizing
it around mid-century.
The conceptual appeal of the arrangement is
apparent. The image of the Virgin and Child
in the Gros Diptych derives from Rogier's
Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin (fig. 2). The diptych
pairs an iconic representation of the
Virgin-her portrait by Saint Luke, as it
were-with a portrait of the pious patron.
The image of the Virgin itself might have been
an object of the patron's personal devotions.
By combining it with the patron's portrait, the
artist has made that personal devotion an inte-
gral part of the image.
The arrangement evolved from two pictorial
traditions. First, the pairing of half-
length male and female figures parallels portrait
diptychs of married couples, although
here the male patron cedes the position of precedence,
at the left, to the Virgin. Second, the
half-length depiction of one figure in supplication
to another is related to that of Christ and
the praying Virgin. Robert Campin's picture
of about 1435 (fig. 38) is a late reflection of this
compositional type. Deriving ultimately from
Byzantine icons, the scheme was first introduced
in northern Europe at the beginning of
the fourteenth century through the intermediary
of trecento Italian models. In the older
type, represented by Campin's picture, the
Virgin intercedes on behalf of all mankind,
praying for Christ's mercy on Judgment Day.
In the later permutation of the scheme, represented
by Rogier's diptych, the individual
prays on his own behalf to the Virgin for her
intercession.
Little is known about the original destinations
of diptychs and triptychs with halflength
compositions, including those with
portraits, but their intimate presentation and
personal scale suggest that they were intended
for private family chapels and domestic rather
than public altars. The only half-length
fifteenth-century Flemish triptych whose
original destination is known, Rogier van der
Weyden's Jean Braque Triptych of about 1450,
in the Louvre, was destined for the patron's
residence and remained in that family's possession
until 1586. Memling's Marten van
Nieuwenhove Diptych of 1487 (fig. 39) belonged
to the Nieuwenhove family until 1640,
indicating that it, too, had not been part of a
religious donation. In this work, the form of
the devotional portrait diptych finds its highest
level of realization. Memling abandoned
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