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Netherlandish Painting in the 1400s

Shown under an ornately carved stone arch, a young woman holds a baby on her lap as she sits on a curving gold chair flanked by two kneeling angels in this vertical painting. All of the people have pale skin. The woman has long blond hair, a straight nose, and a small pink mouth. Her body faces us but she gazes down. She wears a gold-trimmed, deep blue robe under a crimson-red mantle that covers her shoulders and drapes over her lap and to the floor. She holds an open book with her left hand, on our right, and supports the sitting baby’s body with her other hand. The baby is nude except for a piece of white fabric across one thigh. The baby touches the open book with one hand and reaches toward a small, round piece of fruit the angel on our left offers. That angel has blond hair and sapphire-blue wings, and wears a pale blue garment under a red and gold patterned robe. The angel holds out the fruit with the right hand and in the other, holds an instrument like a violin and bow. The angel to our right has similar hair and facial features, and has blue wings and a sky-blue robe. Both hands strum a harp as the angel gazes to our left almost in profile. Behind the chair, a cloth patterned in pine green and gold hangs vertically from a curving red overhang between tall, narrow archways that open onto a landscape. In the distance, people move through green fields and along a river winding toward a castle to our left beneath a clear blue sky. The angels' wings overlap with the stone archway that frames the scene. It is carved along the inner edge of the arch with vines, lizards, and snails. Two columns flank the arch and atop each is a bearded man, as if carved from the same cream-colored stone of the arch. The man to our left holds a harp and the one to our right holds a saw. Winged, nude, child-like people, putti, hold orbs aloft in the upper corners.

Overview

The works on this tour were produced by artists from France, Germany, and the Low Countries between about 1400 and 1550, years when the culture of early modern Europe emerged from the social, political, and religious orientation of the Middle Ages. This period witnessed the development of capitalism, the rise of nation states, and the Protestant Reformation.

By 1400 Europe's population, devastated by plague and warfare in the preceding century, began to rebound. Much of the growth came in cities and towns, where a money economy produced an entirely new middle class of bankers, merchants, and skilled artisans who were increasingly well educated and receptive to new ideas. In the universities, philosophical nominalism, which held that the particulars of sensory experience are more "real" than abstract ideals, focused attention on man and the natural world. Soon the boundaries of that world were expanded by exploration. The pace of change was accelerated by the invention of movable type in the mid-1400s. More books were printed in the forty years before 1500 than had been produced during the entire Middle Ages.

Oil Painting in the Netherlands

Other developments revolutionized painting. A new market was created by the middle class for small versions of the painted panels found in church altarpieces for use in private devotions at home. Except for portraits, painting on panel had not previously commanded the same prestige among royal patrons as the more sumptuous arts of tapestry weaving and manuscript illumination. At this time, however, artists reproduced the domestic settings and cherished possessions of a new clientele. They did so with a meticulous eye narrowly focused on detail. And they used a new technique, oil painting. The introduction of oil paints in northern Europe, not invented but perhaps perfected by Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck, allowed artists to build up layer after careful layer of translucent glazes, blending color and reflecting light to mimic appearances in a way not possible with the flat, opaque colors of quick-drying tempera paints. The realistic manner of these early Netherlandish artists soon replaced the artificial delicacy of the so-called International Style, which had dominated late Gothic art all across Europe.

The realism of these new paintings increased the viewers' sense that the scenes they witnessed were continuous with their own experience. In religious painting, whether on church altarpieces or private devotional panels, it prompted an empathetic, often emotional response that allowed viewers to share in the suffering of Christ and drew them into the same sphere as the Virgin and saints. These intimate images appealed to the direct and personal religious experience stressed in late medieval piety. In the Low Countries particularly, where this so-called devotio moderna (modern devotion) was centered, laymen and women joined religious confraternities to emulate Jesus in their everyday lives, influenced by such devotional literature as Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ.

Hans Memling, Netherlandish, active c. 1465 - 1494, Madonna and Child with Angels, after 1479, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.41

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Shown from the chest up on the far side of a narrow ledge, a woman wearing an elaborate headdress and gown faces our left in profile in this vertical portrait painting. Her pale-peach skin is smooth with little shading around the features. The hazel eye we see is heavy-lidded under a thin, arched brow. The woman has a notably high forehead and a sloped nose. Her lips are closed over a knobby chin and fleshy jawline. Her hair is gathered up in a fine gold net under a twisted, ring-like headdress held in place with long gold pins. The fabric of the headdress alternates between twists of parchment brown or light brown patterned with red or darker brown leaf patterns. A network of muted blue dots encircled with gold does not quite line up with the headdress it overlays. The high collar of the woman’s peacock-blue dress flares up the back of her head over a white collar that curls away along either side of her chin. The garment is covered with flowers and stems outlined in gold. There are thick gold bands at her neck and around her waist. A chain made up of two strands of gold orbs like oversized beads hangs from the shoulder closer to us and then wraps around her body. A gold pendant near her neck may be two chain links or a thin letter B. Light glints off the ledge along the bottom of the painting, and the background is inky black.

Portraits were often included in devotional works, in which donors were depicted as witnessing a sacred scene. Independent portraits, however, are extremely rare before about 1425. This painting is the only one of a woman known to exist today. Her identity remains a mystery, but her dress and hauteur suggest she may have been at the French court; evidently she was a person of considerable rank. Portraits were commonly made of prospective partners in arranged marriages between powerful royal families. Van Eyck, for example, painted such portraits while on diplomatic assignment. The age and commanding presence of this woman, however, may indicate that she was already in a strong dynastic position. Her profile pose produces a clear and authoritative image and avoids direct contact with the viewer's gaze.

The austere line of the subject's features is emphasized by the high forehead of her fashionable plucked hair line. High contrast against the flat background exaggerates the refinement of her likeness. The artist has painted individual details, such as the crimped curl at the brow and the heavy cage beads pinned at the shoulders, with careful attention; yet they are subordinated in a composition that has geometric, almost abstract severity. These ornamental qualities are typical of the International Style, which predominated all over Europe until it was supplanted by the more naturalistic work of the painters Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck and their followers.

Franco-Flemish 15th Century, Profile Portrait of a Lady, c. 1410, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.23

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Three women, two men, and an infant are gathered within a walled garden that extends off a building, its façade visible to the left, in this horizontal painting. The women have pale white skin and the men have olive-toned complexions. The men and women all wear voluminous, flowing robes and garments in lapis blue, ruby red, rose pink, olive or spring green. At the center a woman, Mary, supports a partially nude and squirming infant on her lap. Mary has wavy blond hair and wears a dark blue velvet robe that pools on the ground around her, with a lighter blue dress beneath. She sits on a chair with wooden spindle arms facing forward, toward us. She holds up the infant with interlaced fingers that wrap around his middle, and she inclines her head down and to our left, toward the infant. The child has blond hair, wide open blue eyes, and a chubby, pink-cheeked face. He is wrapped in a long, shimmery gold robe with brown cuffs and collar, which is open over his lower torso and legs. Facing our right, the child reaches with his left arm, palm outward. An array of shimmery, gold painted lines fan out around the heads of Mary and the infant. Just beyond the child’s reach, a woman in a red dress and shoulder-length, white head covering bends toward him and holds out a golden apple or other fruit. To our right, an elderly man has a full gray beard, and he gazes to our left. He leans, semi-stooping, on a walking stick that pins the hem of his garment. He wears a flowing cape in olive green with a black hood bunched across his shoulders, and a black skullcap. At his right foot, a small hog noses out from amid the draped garments. To the left of Mary stands a tall man in a spring-green cape with a gold lining, which hangs around his knees, exposing his lower legs and bare feet. He has bushy brown hair and a full beard. He cradles a small white lamb in his left arm while gesturing toward it with his right. His head is turned to our right, and he gazes off in that direction. Next to him, on the left side of the painting, a pale woman with flowing red hair in a pale pink cape sits on the ground directly in front of an arched doorway leading into the stone building. She sits facing our right, almost in profile. She bends her head toward a large, bound book resting on her lap that has lines of calligraphic writing in black and red. Propped beneath her right arm and projecting outward is a black metal sword that has a heart-shaped top. The sword’s tip touches a wooden wheel that lies on the grass, partially under the woman’s garments. The brick wall behind the group is covered across its width with a green and gold tapestry or cloth with a repeating floral motif. In the center, a vertical woven cloth of red and gold heraldic designs, with blue and green details, extends to the top of the painting, forming a backdrop behind Mary and the child. The ground is covered with green vegetation and a few small, pale yellow flowers blooming at the group’s feet. Over the wall, which is slightly higher than the standing man’s head, a sliver of blue sky and treetops is visible.

This imposing panel, once part of a large altarpiece, is probably the work of a follower of Robert Campin, who along with Jan van Eyck transformed painting in the fifteenth-century Netherlands. Campin's influence can be traced through succeeding generations. Among his many pupils was Rogier van der Weyden.

The scene places Mary and Child with saints -- from left to right, Catherine, John the Baptist, Barbara, and Anthony Abbot -- in a walled garden. This enclosure represents both Mary's virginity and the verdant shelter of paradise, which is accessible to worshipers through Christ and the intercession of the saints on their behalf. An unnaturally high horizon makes the ground appear to open up from the viewer, as if to convey him or her into the sacred company. The child is carefully placed at the point where the various triangles -- formed by the Virgin's robe, the gazes of John and Barbara, the lines of Catherine's sword and Anthony's staff -- converge.

Each surface is treated with an almost photographic precision. Plants are depicted with botanical accuracy, and the textures of rich cloth, an important source of wealth in the northern cities, are equally detailed. However, these elements do not combine to create a realistic space. The perspective is more intuitive than scientific and the figures are too large for their surroundings, their size matched not to nature but to their symbolic importance.

Follower of Robert Campin, Madonna and Child with Saints in the Enclosed Garden, c. 1440/1460, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1959.9.3

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A woman and winged angel, both with pale, peach skin, are situated in a church interior in this tall, narrow painting. To our left, the angel has long, blond, curly hair, smooth skin, and is smiling. The wings are outlined in royal blue, and they blend from blue to green to yellow to crimson. The angel holds one hand, closer to us, up at chest height with the index finger subtly pointing upward. Holding a long scepter in the other hand, the angel angles their body toward the woman to our right. The angel wears a gold jewel and pearl-encrusted crown and a jeweled long, voluminous robe in scarlet-red and shimmering gold brocade. The neck and along the opening down the front are lined with pearls and jewels. The angel looks toward the woman, who wears a royal-blue dress tied with a red belt at the high waist. Her long brown hair is tied back but one tendril falls over her left shoulder, to our right. She kneels facing us with her raised hands facing outward. Her head is tipped a bit to our left, and she looks up and into the distance to our right with lips slightly parted. She kneels behind a book lying open on a low table. A vase of white lilies and a red cushion lies on the floor in front of the table, close to us. The floor is decorated with people and scenes outlined in black and set into square panels, as if inlaid with wood. The church behind and above the people has a row of tall, narrow arches with bull’s-eye glass windows. A walkway lined with columns runs above the arches, and sunlight comes in through arched windows under the flat wood ceiling. A white dove flies toward the woman on gold lines from a window at the upper left of the painting. Latin words painted in gold capital letters are exchanged between the people. The angel says, “AVE GRA PLENA.” The letters of the woman’s response are painted upside down and backward: “ECCE ANCILLA DNI.”

Van Eyck is considered one of the greatest painters of any period. Advances in oil techniques helped him paint the physical world in minute detail and with a degree of realism never before possible. It was said he knew fabrics like a weaver, buildings like an architect, and plants like a botanist. Here it is hard to believe that the angel's gleaming brocade is yellow pigment, not true gold, "woven" with brushstrokes, not threads.

In this painting Gabriel announces to Mary that she will bear the son of God. She modestly draws back and responds, "Behold the handmaiden of the Lord." Her words are printed upside down for the Lord above to see. The Holy Spirit descends to her on seven rays of light. This is the moment God's plan for salvation is set in motion. Through Christ's human incarnation the old era of the Law is transformed into a new era of Grace.

Almost every element in the painting contributes to this theme. The architecture moves from older, round Romanesque forms to pointed Gothic arches. In the floor tiles, scenes from the Old Testament prefigure New Testament events; David's slaying of Goliath, for example, fore tends Christ's triumph over the devil. The single top window, where Jehovah stands, contrasts the triple windows below, which suggest the Christian trinity. Even Mary's overlarge figure inside the chapel operates symbolically to underscore her identification with the Church. The lilies beside her refer to her purity.

Jan van Eyck, Netherlandish, c. 1390 - 1441, The Annunciation, c. 1434/1436, oil on canvas transferred from panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.39

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A woman with pale white skin and her blond hair covered by a wide veil is shown from the waist up in this vertical portrait painting. Her folded hands rest on the lower edge of the panel, suggesting that she sits just on the other side, close to us. The transparent white veil covers her blond hair and falls in stiff, wide panes down in front of her shoulders. Her hair is pulled back behind a black ribbon over a high forehead. Her light brown eyes are downcast and she has a straight nose and full, pale pink lips. Her chest is covered by another veil and is tucked into the deep V-neck of her long-sleeved, black dress. A wide scarlet-red belt adorned with an ornately filigreed gold belt buckle encircles her narrow waist. Her skin, white veils, and red belt contrast sharply with her velvety black dress and the dark pine green of the background.

Rogier was among the greatest painters of northern Europe. His inventiveness and emotional intensity had great and lasting influence.

Late in life he was particularly interested in portraiture and accepted many commissions from the Burgundian court, including perhaps this unidentified woman. In the fifty years or so since the Franco-Flemish portrait in this gallery was painted, poses of sitters were rotated from strict profiles to three-quarter views that revealed personalities in a more intimate and directly personal manner. The intense concentration in this woman's downcast gaze is reinforced by her fingers, which seem to press nervously together. The position of her hands, held not in prayer but as if resting on an unseen ledge, suggests that this was an independent portrait and was not meant to accompany a sacred scene, even though it was Rogier who first combined such half-length portraits with devotional images.

A severe balance of pattern and form -- notice the interlocking triangles in her veil and neckline -- creates a brittle, abstract elegance that is typical of Rogier's portraits. Details are reduced to geometric clarity, and the face is painted in a restrained, linear manner. Compare its smooth shallow planes to the irregular facial terrain of Diego de Guevara. In that later work, light and shadow combine to reveal every bulge and furrow.

Rogier van der Weyden, Netherlandish, 1399/1400 - 1464, Portrait of a Lady, c. 1460, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.44

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A naked man with ghostly white skin sits upright in a canopied bed set in a narrow room in this tall, vertical painting. Wearing a black cap, he looks to our left in profile toward a skeleton who comes through a door along the left edge of the composition. The man gestures at the skeleton with one hand and, with the other, toward a bag of money held up by a small demon next to the bed to our left. The skeleton wears a white shroud and holds an arrow. A winged angel kneels next to the man in the bed, one hand on the man’s shoulder and the other lifted to gesture at a crucifix hanging in the window over the door. A small devil on the canopy above looks down onto the bed. At the foot of the bed, a man wearing a green robe and headdress drops coins into a sack held by another demon. Three more demons crawl about and hide under the chest. Pieces of armor and weapons lie on the ground to the right in front of a stone ledge in the foreground. Two pieces of clothing drape over the ledge to our left.

Of all fifteenth-century artists, Hieronymus Bosch is the most mysterious. His puzzling, sometimes bizarre imagery has prompted a number of false assertions that he was, for example, the member of a heretical sect, a sexual libertine, or a forerunner of the surrealists. What can be said is that he was a moralist, profoundly pessimistic about man's inevitable descent into sin and damnation.

In this slender panel, probably a wing from a larger altarpiece, a dying man seems torn between salvation and his own avarice. At the foot of the bed a younger man, possibly the miser at an earlier age, hypocritically throws coins into a chest with one hand as he fingers a rosary with the other. In his last hour, with death literally at the door, the miser still hesitates; will he reach for the demon's bag of gold or will he follow the angel's gesture and direct his final thoughts to the crucifix in the window?

Avarice was one of the seven deadly sins and among the final temptations described in the Ars moriendi (Art of Dying), a religious treatise probably written about 1400 and later popularized in printed books. Bosch's painting is similar to illustrations in these books, but his introduction of ambiguity and suspense is unique.

This panel is thinly painted. In several areas it is possible to see in the underdrawing where Bosch changed his mind about the composition. His thin paint and unblended brushstrokes differ markedly from the enamellike polish of other works in this gallery.

Hieronymus Bosch, Netherlandish, c. 1450 - 1516, Death and the Miser, c. 1485/1490, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.33

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A pale-skinned woman wearing a voluminous, garnet-red, long-sleeved dress kneels at a low lectern in a dark gray room, in front of a window opening onto a grassy landscape in this vertical painting. The woman’s body is angled to our left, and she looks off in that direction. She has a high forehead, thin, arched brows, light brown eyes, a round jawline, and her pale lips are closed. A cone-shaped, gold headdress covers her hair. On the headdress, pearls mark the intersections of a grid made by lines of white dots, and there is a red flower in the center of each square. A gauzy, translucent veil covers her forehead to her brows and hangs off the back of the headdress. Another sheer cloth covers the woman’s chest down to the neckline of her dress, which is edged with gray fur. A gold-colored belt gathers the full skirt, which pools on the ground around and behind her. Gray cuffs cover the backs of her hands to her fingers, which touch in prayer in front of her waist. She wears a gold ring on the ring finger we can see. The gray lectern at which she kneels is cut off by the left side of the painting. Pages flutter across an open book laid on the angled top of the lectern. The floor beneath is a checkerboard of veined, muted, pale pink and ivory-white tiles. A print showing a crowned woman holding two more crowns is affixed to the gray wall with red dots, presumably wax. In the print, the woman’s robe has been colored pale pink, and she stands on bronze-colored grass. Words printed in red and black letters beneath the woman are partially legible, and include “O s a elisab. O.” Above the print hangs a shield-like object that curls away from the wall in a shallow C shape. The shield is rectangular and made up of four vertical, fluted sections. Two to the left are bright red and the two to the right are white. In the top third of the shield, a stylized black bird extends its wings against a copper-red background. The shield hangs from a gray cord on a substantial iron nail. Behind the kneeling woman, a window opening is bisected by an pair of columns. The view beyond shows grassy hills rolling back to spindly trees, a body of water reflecting the pale, nearly white sky, and distant trees and mountains, blue along the horizon. Tiny in the sky, seven birds, presumably geese, fly in a lopsided V near the top left corner of the opening.

Petrus Christus was the leading artist in Bruges after the death of Jan van Eyck. He purchased citizenship there, presumably so he could enter the painters' guild, and became known primarily for devotional images. This portrait and its mate were most likely part of a hinged three-part panel painting called a triptych. These were almost certainly the wings, which when opened showed the man and woman praying to an image of the Virgin and Child in the center. Since they are depicted in a domestic setting, the panels were probably made for private devotion in the couple's home.

The woman's costume is that of a wealthy matron from the Low Countries, but the coat of arms depicted is that of the Vivaldi, a prominent Genoese family with extensive banking and commercial interests in the north. Stuck to the wall with dabs of red sealing wax is a woodcut. It depicts Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia, so in all likelihood the woman's name was also Elizabeth or some variant of it. Undoubtedly, she and her husband, known to be a member of the Lomellini family by the coat of arms on his portrait, were part of the large Italian business community in Bruges. These families, because they carried small panels like this one home with them, played an important role in spreading the oil technique and the precise style of northern paintings to Italy. As Michelangelo noted, "In Flanders they paint, before all things, to render exactly and deceptively the outward appearance of things."

Petrus Christus, Netherlandish, active 1444 - 1475/1476, Portrait of a Female Donor, c. 1455, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.11

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Dirck Bouts was a member of the second generation of artists who followed and pursued the style of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, but little is known about his life or career. He worked primarily in Louvain, in modern-day Belgium, and was married to a woman wealthy enough to be called "Metten Geld" (with money). This painting is one of only a very few to survive by the artist. It illustrates the noble solemnity of expression and the meticulous technique for which Bouts was known.

Small enough to fit in the palm of the hand, this tiny work was evidently an item of personal devotion. The light that falls on the Virgin and Child, their expressions, and their postures are subtly manipulated to make the infant appear bright and alert while the Madonna seems pensive and somber, her face darkened by sadness. Fifteenth-century viewers would have immediately interpreted this difference as evidence that Mary was foreseeing the future of Christ on the cross. They believed that the Virgin had suffered along with her son, actually experiencing the same pain. This kind of empathetic identification was an important element of religious life in the north during the fifteenth century. By meditating on such dramatic closeups of great immediacy, the worshiper also could experience Jesus' life and suffering in a direct and personal way.

Dirck Bouts, Netherlandish, c. 1415/1420 - 1475, Madonna and Child, c. 1465, oil on panel, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1986.67.1

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A woman sitting close to us in front of a deep landscape holds up a white cloth with the image of a man’s face on it in this vertical painting. The woman and the image on the cloth both have pale skin, hooded eyes, and long, straight noses. The woman’s shoulders are squared toward us, and her legs are tucked under her. Her head tips slightly to our right. Her eyes are downcast, and her bow-shaped lips are parted. She wears a white, turban-like headdress with a white veil covering her neck and upper chest. Her rose-pink dress is mostly covered by a voluminous, lapis-blue robe falling from the back of the headdress to the ground, where it puddles in angular folds. On the white cloth she holds up, the man’s head has chin-length blond hair and a beard. He looks out at us with light brown eyes. The woman sits on a grassy field. A dirt path cuts through a shallow valley across the picture, not far behind the woman. More harvest-yellow and moss-green hills roll back to a town with gray stone buildings with blue roofs along the horizon, which comes three-quarters of the way up the composition. The sky above deepens from white at the horizon to azure blue across the top of the painting.

This two-sided panel was once the right wing of a diptych. On the front we see Veronica, among the most venerated saints of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Several legends about her were conflated and she was identified with different people, including the compassionate woman who gave Jesus a cloth as he struggled on the way to Calvary; when he wiped his brow with the cloth, it was miraculously imprinted with his face. By the 12th century, a cloth believed to be Veronica's veil had entered the Vatican. Indulgences (reducing time in purgatory and even remitting sin) were granted for reciting prayers either before the relic or before images of it. Veronica was also invoked against the danger of sudden death before confession. On the reverse of the panel, a snake slithers from a chalice, referring to an event in the life of John the Evangelist when he blessed a poison cup and drank from it without harm. The serpent represents the departing poison and points to the promise of salvation in the eucharistic wine. The left panel of the diptych (now in Munich) depicts John the Baptist, with a skull on the reverse.

Memling worked primarily for the middle class and the resident Italian community in Bruges. He apparently studied with Rogier van der Weyden, but he did not adopt Rogier's intensely emotional style. His subjects are devout, but placid, his landscapes infused with late summer stillness. By the time of his death, Memling supported a large workshop and was among Bruges' wealthiest citizens. His work was also popular in Italy, where it was admired for its clear colors and delicate vistas. Details of the landscape in this panel, which once belonged to the Venetian humanists Bernardo and Pietro Bembo, may have influenced the young Raphael.

Hans Memling, Netherlandish, active c. 1465 - 1494, Saint Veronica [obverse], c. 1470/1475, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.46.a

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To our right, a man with a long, pointed beard, wearing a fawn-brown, hooded robe, walks toward a second bearded man, to our left, wearing a cobalt-blue robe and sitting on a stone slab in front of a deep landscape, in this vertical painting. Both men have pale skin and brown hair. The man to our right faces our left in profile, and has two sharp, bone-white horns curving back from the top of his head and a claw-like, webbed foot protruding from under the hem of his monk’s robe. He has a prominent, hooked nose, sunken eyes, and he seems to look ahead, into the distance. He clutches a strand of large beads hanging from his waist with his right hand, farther from us, and holds a round, loaf-sized stone in his other hand. The body of the seated man, to our left, faces us but he turns to look off to our right with dark eyes. His left hand, to our right, rests in his lap and his other hand is raised, palm facing the walking man. Rocks and boulders lie on the ground between and around the men. Behind them, a grassy meadow dotted with tiny white flowers slopes down to a line of trees with olive-green leaves, tucked beyond the hill. One tall, spindly tree grows behind the horned man and a bird perches, wings spread, on the top. A steep, rocky cliff rises behind the seated man, to our left. Two strokes of light blue and pale beige suggest two people standing atop the cliff. Beyond, a city with tan-colored stone buildings and blue mountains are hazy in the distance. Atop a tower in the city, the pair of men appear again, with the man in brown gesturing down and the man in blue looking on. Three more birds fly across the sky, which deepens from a misty white near the mountaintops in the background to azure blue along the top edge of the panel. The surface of the painting has visible long, mostly vertical cracks throughout.

This small panel, along with Sittow's Assumption of the Virgin, was made for an elaborate altarpiece in the private chapel of Queen Isabella of Spain. Most of the jewellike panels -- there were more than forty in all -- were painted by this artist, who must have been Netherlandish but moved to Spain to work for the court. Probably they were among his earliest commissions. Later the panels were admired by the great German artist Albrecht Dürer for their unequaled "precision and excellence."

Here the three temptations of Christ, described in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, are illustrated with great narrative delight. In the foreground, the devil, horned and with demon's feet though clad in a monk's robe, tempts the hungry Christ to turn stones into bread. In the distance at left he offers the kingdoms of the world from a mountain top; and on the right, from the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem, the devil challenges Christ to hurl himself down without injury.

The dramatic encounter is set in a landscape typical, not of the biblical wilderness described in the Gospels, but of a northern town. The soft air fades to blue in the distance, helping the eye to see the recession of space. The composition may have been based on models from manuscript illumination. While in Spain, Juan de Flandes's style became broader and less delicate; though he later painted larger works, he continued to delight in narrative detail.

Juan de Flandes, Hispano-Flemish, active 1496 - 1519, The Temptation of Christ, c. 1500/1504, oil on panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1967.7.1

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