ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN IN THE MAURITSHUIS: A CURATORIAL MASTERCLASS
Last week, I finally got the chance to catch the last two weeks of one of the best exhibitions I’ve seen in some time: Rogier van der Weyden Unveiled. The exhibition gives a clear and definitive answer to the question — what additional value the museums can offer to its visitors today?
The exhibition, curated in the traditional Panofsky’s use of iconography & iconology, provides a new kind of experience. Instead of curating an old fashioned exhibition (discussing Van der Weyden and 15th-century Flanders, or shedding new light on the relationship between [blank] or perhaps giving a new meaning to the [blank] that was previously unknown), in a bold move, the Mauritshuis chose to put only two works of art on view and display the museum’s relevance as an institution as its main exhibit.
When entering the smaller exhibition space, I was confronted with a short visual introduction to Rogier van der Weyden. This intro is divided into three parts: the artist and his workshop, who was the patron and a loan from Florence.
When I first studied 15th century art, I was asked to read many books proving there were many renaissances and not just the Italian Renaissance. These books were crucial as they provided a kind of ‘justification’ to research other topics, such as the middle ages and the art of the Low Countries. Funny to think about it today, but back then, you had to show the importance of your subject to get an approval for your theme. One of the ways to make such justification, was to connect your theme to someone who’s importance no one will question. The loan from Florence and the connection between Rogier van der Weyden and Cosimo de’ Medici, in my opinion, makes such a connection.
The introductory hall, immediately brought to mind all the “In Detail” publications. Thanks to today’s technological advances, we can zoom into a work of art and really marvel on the fine hidden messages the viewer is rewarded with only after a careful and long examination of the painting. This series offers a new look at works we are very familiar with, and yet shows us fragments we’ve never seen before.
The introductory section of the exhibition, naturally brings you to the loan from Florence depicting the Entombment. This is the first time I got the chance to see it, as my long awaited trip to the Uffizi keeps getting postponed… The painting is in remarkable state and is a delight for any Flemish art lover. There are indeed many visual connections between this painting and the one owned by the Mauritshuis. I believe that by presenting this artwork alone, without all the splendours of the Uffize, the viewer is rewarded with an uninterrupted study of this unique painting.
Now, we come face to face with the main exhibit. Guarded by a white screen, Van der Weyden’s masterpiece is very well lit from all directions showing that part of it was already restored while the middle section is still under construction. You can see it from the absence of the varnish, or the glossy part of the painting. The main conservator, Carol Pottasch, is there (in her white coat that she later took off) talking to the visitors and explaining about the process!
The accessibility of the artwork along with its conservator to the public is, without doubt, the most unusual thing I’ve seen in a museum. A few years ago, when the Ghent Altarpiece was restored (and apparently is still being worked on), I could see the conservators waiving to the public behind thick glass. I’m not sure if there was a two way communication possible, but if it was, it felt like you would interrupt their work and should just stare quietly as if you are in a zoo and do not wish to disturb the exhibit.
Mauritshuis’ decision to carry out the restoration in full public view blew my mind. It is clear this masterpiece is one of the oldest and treasured pieces in the collection and displaying it in such a vulnerable state creates a stronger emotional connection between the work and its viewers. It has been a week since I visited the exhibition, and I can’t stop thinking about it. How can you make such a powerful impact with only two works of art? Brilliant.
Unveiled
If you didn’t get the chance to visit the exhibition, let me walk you through it!
This summer we present the restoration of a masterpiece. Two conservators will be working here every day on the Lamentation of Christ by Rogier van der Weyden. The painting dates from around 1460–1464 and is the oldest work of art in the Mauritshuis. It is also the only Van der Weyden in a Dutch museum, which makes it a very special painting.
Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1399–1464) and Jan van Eyck were among the first Flemish painters to work in oils. This new technique made it possible to paint extremely precisely in intense colours. Placed in Flemish settings, Van der Weyden’s biblical scenes are full of lifelike details.
A problem with Van der Weyden’s oeuvre is that he didn’t sign or dated his paintings, so we don’t know much about the Lamentation with certainty. The restoration that we are carrying out is a good opportunity to investigate the painting. We examined the panel and the paint layers and looked at the underdrawing. We tried to find out who commissioned the painting, and we compared it to other works by Van der Weyden. Among them a special painting from the Galleria deli Uffizi in Florence, on loan to this show. We are trying to better understand the Lamentation and unveil the painting for you.
The Lamentation — story and details
After Christ’s death, his followers lift him down from the cross to bury him. He is supported by Joseph of Arimathea; Nicodemus holds one end of the shroud. In the centre Christ’s mother Mary kneels weeping on the ground, supported by St John. The three holy women on the left also let their tears flow. One is Mary Magdalene, identified by her jar of ointment. The bishop on the right is the man who commissioned the painting. He is accompanied by St Peter (with the keys of heaven) and St Paul (with the sword).
Compassio (or compassion) is at the heart of this work. The open wounds, the clotted blood and Christ’s outstretched pose are reminders of his agonising death on the cross. But Van der Weyden employs above all the overwhelming grief of his mother and followers to evoke the sense of Christ’s suffering in the faithful.
ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN AND HIS WORKSHOP
Researching the Lamentation
The Mauritshuis purchased the Lamentation of Christ in 1827 for the sum of 3,000 guilders. The painting was believed to be by Hans Memling, a pupil of Rogier van der Weyden. At that time Memling was more popular than his teacher. Twenty years later the painting was attributed to Van der Weyden.
Van der Weyden didn’t paint the Lamentation single handedly: workshop assistants were responsible for parts of its execution. During its current restoration we will be using various techniques to examine the painting and underdrawing.
Rogier’s tears
Van der Weyden’s paintings are full of exquisite details. From jewels to daisies and fur cloaks to gold brocade, Van der Weyden painted it all with the same meticulousness. But he also had a remarkable talent for depicting emotions: the figures in his paintings are expressive and often let their tears flow freely.
A comparison with paintings that Van der Weyden painted entirely by himself play an important role in understanding the Lamentation. Reproduced here are several highlights from his oeuvre.
The Master and his assistants
By examining the underdrawing and painting technique used for the Mauritshuis Lamentation, we hope to find out which areas Van der Weyden could have painted himself and which were executed by his assistants. We are comparing the painting to the Descent from the Cross from Prado — a work which was painted in its entirety by Van der Weyden. This has revealed that the Lamentation has a number of stronger and weaker aspects. But we can only really assess our Lamentation when the restoration is complete.
The figures in the Descent from the Cross in the Prado are more robust and voluminous than those in our Lamentation. The execution of the Madrid painting is also more refined. Mary’s white headdress, for example, is adorned with a ruffled edge, while the garment in the Mauritshuis painting is much simpler. Nevertheless the figures in both paintings are very similar, such as the woman who clasps her hands together in sorrow or John supports Mary.
Underdrawings
Van der Weyden worked with detailed underdrawings. The composition was sketched onto a prepared panel as a guide for the painter. But during the painting process the artist could diverge from his original plans, resulting in small and large differences between the underdrawing and paint layer.
The underdrawing — invisible beneath the paint — can be photographed with an infrared camera. This allows us to compare the underdrawings of different paintings and identify the distinctive drawing style of Van der Weyden and his workshop assistants. The same style appears in the underdrawing of both our pairing and the work from Florence.
Typical of Van der Weyden are the sharp flicks at the end of the broad lines in the underdrawing, as can be seen in the folds of the clothing worn by the woman sitting on the left (Mauritshuis) and Mary Magdalene (Uffizi).
Patterns in the workshop
Van der Weyden ran a large workshop where assistants helped with the production of his paintings. They made countless variations on the master’s successful compositions. The assistants painted in their master’s style and worked from model drawings known as ‘patterns’. These patterns also played a role in new commissions, enabling a client to use them as the basis for ordering a custom-made painting.
After Van der Weyden’s death, his workshop was taken by his son Pieter and later by his grandson Goswin. They continued to work in the deceased master’s style for several decades.
WHO WAS THE PATRON?
The Bishop
The man kneeling devoutly on the right is a bishop. His portrait doesn’t really belong in a biblical scene like this. He must be the patron who commissioned the painting for his church. But who is he? And why did he have the painting made?
Despite extensive research, the bishop remains unidentified. Of the various candidates, Pierre de Ranchicourt (1426?-1499) seems the most likely. But unfortunately no other portraits of this Bishop of Arras exist. This makes it impossible to make a comparison and as a result the bishop remains anonymous.
In full regalia
The bishop had himself portrayed in full regalia. He wears a mitre adorned with precious stones and pearls and a cloak made of expensive gold brocade. There is an image of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary in the crook of his golden crozier, while Jesus appears with two angels, his hand raised in blessing, on the cloak’s clasp. Most striking are the embroidered apostles on the cloak.
Van der Weyden’s rendering of the bishop’s robes is incredibly detailed and lifelike. But in all likelihood the cloak didn’t exist; Van der Weyden simply painted it according to the patron’s wishes. As a bishop, the patron had followed in the footsteps of the twelve apostles and, like them, he spread the gospel.
AN ENTOMBMENT FROM FLORENCE
A commission from Cosimo
Van der Weyden wasn’t only famous in Flanders, he was also sought after in Italy. Italian collectors loved the Flemish painting style — la manners fiamminga. In 1450 Van der Weyden travelled to Italy where he was welcomed like a celebrity. Some ten years later Cosimo de’ Medici, ruler of Florence, commissioned an altarpiece from him. The painting was intended for the Vila Medici at Careggi, near Florence. An illustrious commission for the Flemish master. The resulting painting — presently on loan to us — displays many similarities to the Mauritshuis Lamentation.
Oak panel
Van der Weyden painted Cosimo’s Entombment of Crest on oak, a type of wood not used for painting in Italy. As a result, we can deduce that he didn’t paint the work in Florence, but back home in Brussels. When Cosimo and Rogier both died in 1464, the painting probably wasn’t yet finished. Workshop assistants would have completed it and sent it to Florence. It was first described as an altarpiece in the chapel of the Villa Medici at Careggi in 1492. The painting has been at the Uffizi since 1666.
Fra Angelico
Van der Weyden based the Uffizi Entombment on a painting by the Florentine painter Far Angelico (1395–1455), who had also painted a Lamentation for San Marco in Florence. It was part of an altarpiece, also commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici.
A lamentation at the open tomb was an unusual subject for Flemish painting, but in Italy it was more common. Van der Weyden had evidently received clear instructions from Florence.
Comparison of two Lamentation scenes
The Mauritshuis Lamentation and the Uffizi painting are very alike. Not only in terms of subject matter, but the painting style and underdrawing are also very similar. Nevertheless, there are differences, particularly in the execution of the details.
A loan from Florence
After his death, Christ has been taken down from the cross by his followers. They will inter him in the rock tomb behind them. Their grief and distress are evident: all five have tears running down their cheeks.
The dead Christ is held up by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, while the Virgin Mary and St John (in dazzling red) lift his hands, so that Christ resumes the shape of the cross — a subtle visual repetition that Rogier van der Weyden used quite often. Mary Magdalene kneels in the foreground with her jar of ointment on the ground besides the tombstone.
More about the Lamentation
The painting was built up in several layers. The ground was applied to the oak panel. An underdrawing of the composition was added after that. Then paint was applied and varnish as the final layer. In the fifteenth century, painters ordered their panels from a panel maker, complete with frames. The oak panel used for the Lamentation is high quality: it has hardly warped at all over the course of time.
Van der Weyden painted the Lamentation when the panel was already in its frame. That original frame has been lost, but you can still see an unpainted edge around the panel. A minuscule ridge of ground layer and pain, known as the ‘barbe’, was formed where the ground and paint were applied along the frame. The babe here is completely intact, so we know that the edges of the panel have never been trimmed.
The panel consists of six vertical planks that have been glued together. Paper labels on the back of the panel provide some information about the painting’s exhibition history. The six vertical planks show up clearly in raking light. They range from 7.8cm to 25.5cm in width. Each plank is slightly convex on the back. When seen in raking light, chisel and plane marks become visible. A butterfly joint was inserted in the upper left part of the panel during an earlier restoration; this is a piece of wood used to reinforce the join between two planks. A red triangle was applied onto the wood before the Second World War. This indicated that the Lamentation had priority over other paintings in the event of evacuation.
Before a painter could start to work, the panel had to be prepared — usually by the panel maker. The ground served to smooth out irregularities in the wood and to ensure good paint adhesion. A sealing layer of glue was applied first; the ground layers (consisting of chalk and animal glue) were added next. Finally, the ground was sanded to a smooth surface. The paint cross-section shows that the white ground of the Lamentation was applied in two layers. The lower layer contains less chalk and more glue than the top layer.
The composition was drawn on the white ground as a guide for painting. The underdrawing is revealed with an infrared camera. The underdrawing of the Lamentation was applied in three stages and then fixed with a thin layer of oil.
Stage 1: The outlines, shapes and shadows were indicated with finely sketched lines in chalk or charcoal.
Stage 2: The finely sketched lines of the first stage were reinforced and corrected with a brush.
Stage 3: Finally, the outlines were corrected again with a brush. In Van der Weyden’s works these rather harder lines often end with a flick.
There are many minor differences between the underdrawing and the paint layer.
Oil paint is made up of pigments and oil. In the fifteenth century, linseed oil was the usual binding medium. Artists (or their assistants) prepared the paint themselves: the pigments were finely ground and mixed with oil to obtain the correct colour and consistency. Van der Weyden used various pigments for the Lamentation, including azurite, ultramarine, vermilion, red lake, a range of earth colours and lead white. He used gold paint for the haloes and some details of the garments. The paint varies from very thin and translucent to pastes and opaque. An artist can achieve very intense colour with oil paints by painting different transparent layers — glazed — one on top of the other.
The varnish protects the surface of the paint and saturates the colours. The present varnish dates from the last restoration, sixty years ago. This layer of varnish had meanwhile seriously discoloured, so the conservators are removing it. Once the restoration is complete, the painting will be varnished again. Cleaning tests show that the varnish put on during the last restoration had badly discoloured.
A new frame
Van der Weyden painted the Lamentation when the panel was already in frame. This is evident from the ‘barbe’ around it, a minuscule raised ridge in the paint. Regrettably, this original frame has been lost. We don’t know when this happened, but we do know that the painting has had at least two new frames since it was purchased in 1827. As these frames no longer satisfy current tastes and requirements, we will be making a new one based on surviving original frames.
