Copies After the Ghent Altarpiece for Spain: Four Case Studies

Chapter 4 Copies after the Ghent Altarpiece for Spain: Four Case Studies

Leslie Blacksberg

Few can doubt the visual power of the Altarpiece of the Holy Lamb by Hubert and Jan van Eyck (Fig. 4.6), completed in 1432 for Joos Vijd and Elisabeth Borluut, wealthy, wool industrialists of Ghent.1 Nearly 600 years after its cre- ation, the altarpiece continues to mesmerize. The rich colors of its oil paint and its veracity of form makes the polyptych timeless. To have seen the Ghent Altarpiece in the fifteenth century would be to experience a work of art un- like any other. The four artists of my case studies may in fact have had that experience. The works that they produced were all made for Spain or acquired for it, and they are: the Virgin of the Councilors by Lluis Dalmau (Barcelona, Museo Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, fig. 4.2); the Fountain of Life by a follower of Jan van Eyck (Madrid, The Prado, fig. 4.3); Christ and the Singing Angels by Hans Memling (Antwerp, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, fig. 4.4); and the Dëesis by Jan Gossart (Madrid, The Prado, fig. 4.5).2 All of these paintings are what I call partial copies, since they borrow only selected motifs, and their intentions are radically different from full-scale copies.3 I will examine how the copy re- sponds to its model while considering larger themes such as the fame of the Altarpiece of the Holy Lamb, the desire of the patrons to include elements from the Ghent Altarpiece in their commission, and the function of partial copying

1 This research was first presented at the Interdisciplinary Conference on Netherlandic Studies, in Ann Arbor, MI on 3 June 2016. I would like to dedicate this paper to Diane G. Scillia for her generous spirit and thoughtful comments. I would also like to thank Amy Golahny for making the connections that allowed my paper to be published. I am further grateful to Dr. Abbey Poffenberger, chair of the department of Languages, Cultures, and Humanities at Eastern Kentucky University for the support in the purchase of photographs. 2 For Eyckian copies and derivations see also the paper by Larry Silver in this volume. 3 Jozef Duverger proposes that there were two categories of copying of the Altarpiece of the Holy Lamb: partial copies in which selected motifs were borrowed to be used for other com- positions and complete replicas. In order to preserve the uniqueness of the orginal, Duverger argues that the church authorities tried to limit the latter, see Jozef Duverger, “Kopieën van het ‘Lams-Gods’-retabel van Hubrecht en Jan van Eyck.” Bulletin Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten Brussel, no. 3, 1954, pp. 51–68, 62–3 and 55.

Figure 4.1 Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Altarpiece of the Holy Lamb. 1432, interior view, Saint Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent Erich Lessing / Art Resource, New York itself. In conclusion, I will evaluate the four case studies in relation to the great- er phenomenon of copying in fifteenth-century Flanders.

1 The Case Studies

Lluis Dalmau, the court painter of Alfonso V from Aragon, has the possible distinction of being the only artist in our group to have been in Jan van Eyck’s Bruges studio when Jan was alive. In 1431, Dalmau was awarded the sizeable amount of 100 gold guilders by his royal patron to travel to Bruges to train, most likely to learn the art of oil painting in Jan’s workshop.4 In Bruges, Dalmau may have had contact with Jan’s workshop or even Jan himself. Back in Spain, Dalmau was commissioned in 1443 by the city councilors of Barcelona to

4 Susan F. Jones, “Jan van Eyck and Spain.” Boletin del Museo del Prado, vol. 32, no. 50, 2014, pp. 30–49, 32; and Stephan Kemperdick, “The History of the Ghent Altarpiece.” The Ghent Altarpiece by the Brothers Van Eyck: History and Appraisal, edited by Stephan Kemperdick and Johannes Röẞler, Michael Imhof, 2014, pp. 8–69, 29.