Summary

Rogier van der Weyden (originally French: Roger de le Pasture) (Tournai, 1399

He is said to have trained in the studio of Robert Campin, along with Jacques Daret and others. Next to Jan van Eyck, Van der Weyden is considered the most important Flemish painter of the 15th century. In his own time, Van der Weyden was known throughout Europe, and he can perhaps be considered the most influential painter of his century. He fused the style of his contemporary Jan van Eyck and of his teacher Robert Campin and added the new element of "emotion" to Flemish painting. In the seventeenth century, Rogier's fame slowly began to wane and he was often associated with Bruges. Since his "rediscovery" in the 19th century, Rogier van der Weyden remained in the public eye in the shadow of painters such as Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling.

Lifetime

On May 16 and 17, 1940, the archives of Tournai were partially destroyed by German bombing raids that flattened almost the entire city center. This makes it difficult to find concrete data on the origin and education of Rogier van der Weyden. Much has been written about this in the professional literature. The discussion is also quite complex and is composed of an interplay of archival source material and stylistic analysis. The various facts that have come to light over the past century and a half cannot be connected without a solid argument. Here is a summary of the facts as they are generally accepted today.

Rogier van der Weyden would have been born in Tournai around 1398-1400, the son of Henri de le Pasture and Agnès de Watrelos. His father was a cutler and lived on Rue Roc Saint-Nicaise in the middle of Tournai's goldsmith quarter. His date of birth was deduced from two preserved documents. A first dated Oct. 21, 1435 about an annual interest he received from the city, in which he was mentioned as 35 years old: Au xxje jour d'octobre . - A maistre Rogier de le Pasture, pointre, fil de feu Henry, demorant à Brouxielles eagié de XXXV ans, de demoisielle Ysabel Goffart fille Jehan, sa femme, eagié de XXX ans: x livres. A Cornille de le Pasture et Marguerite, sa suer, enffans dudit maistre Rogier, qu'il a de ladite demisielle Ysabiel, sa femme, ledit Cornille eagié de viij ans, et ladite Marguerite de iij ans: c solz. (On October 21, 1435.- To Master Rogier de le Pasture, painter, son of Henry, living in Brussels, aged 35 years, from Mrs. Ysabel Goffart daughter Jehan, his wife, aged 30 years: x books. To Cornille de le Pasture and Marguerite, his sister, children of the said master Rogier, whom he has by the said Mrs. Ysabiel, his wife, said Cornille 7 years old and Marguerite 2 years old: c solz) A second similar document from September 1441 lists him as 43 years old from which a birth year of 1398 or 1399 can be deduced.

Rogier's father, Henry de le Pasture died between December 1425 and mid-March 1426, perhaps from the plague epidemic raging in Tournai at the time. The parental house, according to a document of March 18, 1426, in which Rogier was not mentioned, was sold to Ernoul Caudiauwe, the prospective husband of Rogier's sister Jeanne. Mother and children continued to live in the house; in fact, the mother had been granted usufruct.

Before or in 1427, Rogier was already married to Elisabeth (Ysabiel in the 1435 document) Goffaert, the daughter of a Brussels shoemaker. The document concerning the payment of an interest gives the age of 30 for his wife, so she was 5 years younger than Rogier. In the same document, two children are named Cornille (Cornelis) eight years old and Marguerite (Margaretha) 3 years old. It is also said that he resided in "Brouxielles" (Brussels). It cannot be proven, but some historians believe that Campin's wife, Ysabiel de Stoquain and Elisabeth or Ysabiel Goffaert's mother, Cathelijne van Stockem, were related, and given they had the same first name, Campin's wife may have been the godmother of Rogier's wife. Between 1437 and 1450, the couple had two more children Pieter and Jan.

Rogier was thus already living in Brussels by 1435, where he bought a house on the corner of rue Magdalena and the Cantersteen in the years 1443-44. A document dated May 2, 1436, shows that he was appointed city painter in Brussels. In a document from the same year 1436, we also encounter for the first time his Dutchified name "van der Weyden," Dutchification of "de le Pasture" ("to graze" or "to pasture").

He lived in Brussels until his death. That he had become a seated and moneyed citizen may be evidenced by his membership in the brotherhood of St. James-on-Coudenberg which included members of the Burgundian court and the urban elite. His wife Ysabiel was also a member of this brotherhood. Rogier van der Weyden died a very wealthy man; he was buried in the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula in the chapel of St. Catherine, which was used by the confrèrerie of St. Elooi, to which the painters also belonged, for their services. A poem of praise was placed on the tombstone, listed in 1613 by the Louvain Franciscus Sweertius in his Monumenta Sepulcralia Et Inscriptiones Publicae Privataeque Ducatus as:

M. Rogeri Pictoris celeberimmi

Rogier's son Pieter followed in his father's footsteps and took over the studio after his father's death. His grandson Goswin also became a painter and was twice appointed dean in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke. His eldest son Cornelis had entered the Carthusian monastery of Herne in 1449 after graduating from the University of Leuven as magister artium. Rogier donated a painting with St. Catherine to the monastery. Then, when the Carthusian monastery of Scheut was founded in 1456, Van der Weyden donated a Crucifixion, the famous work now in the Escorial in San Lorenzo de El Escorial near Madrid (inv. 10014602). His daughter Margaretha died in 1450. His youngest son Jan became a goldsmith.

Training

One knows nothing with certainty about young Rogier's education. There are no documents dealing with his apprenticeship as a young lad. Apart from the destruction of part of the archives, this is not surprising; it was only from November 1423 that the guilds became statutorily obliged to register masters and apprentices in the guild books. So all sorts of hypotheses have been made about the education of the youthful Rogier but without documentary evidence they remain guesses.

Most art historians today agree that Rogier van der Weyden received his initial training in the 1410s in the studio of Robert Campin, who had settled in Tournai in 1406 and paid bourghesie (portership) in 1410. Campin is also said to have had the slightly younger Jacques Daret as an apprentice during the same period. Daret became an apprentice at Campin in 1415 and lived with the master from 1418. One supposes that this was also the case for Rogier. This thesis is supported by the stylistic and iconographic unity of the works of the three masters. It is argued that it is almost impossible that this could be the result of the short period between 1427 and 1432 during which, according to the documents of the guild of Tournai, Van der Weyden and Daret worked as apprentices (apprentis) with Campin as the last step to their appointment as freemasters.

On November 17, 1426, the city of Tournai donated four jugs of wine to a certain "maistre Rogier de le Pasture. However, it is not clear whether this document refers to the painter Rogier. Usually the wine was offered as 'honor wine' after a student had obtained a master's degree (Magister) somewhere at a university abroad. Some authors have inferred that this is a namesake of the painter. Most, however, hold that it is the same Rogier de le Pasture who, before completing his training as a painter in Tournai, would have obtained a master's degree at the university in Cologne or Paris. Dirk De Vos believes that in Tournai the title of "maistre" was also used for painters who had received a higher education in contrast to pure artisans. He mentions that Robert Campin was mentioned in all documents as 'maistre Campin' this in contrast to other Tournaisian freemasters who were simply mentioned by name. Another explanation other than the university magister title, and according to Houtart and De Vos, a more plausible one would be that Rogier was already awarded the honorary title of 'maistre' in 1426 even though he had not yet established himself as a freemaster. The honorary wine might then have been bestowed on the occasion of his marriage to Ysabiel Goffaert.

In a document dated March 5th of the following year, 1427, there is mention of a certain Rogelet de le Pasture, native of Tournai, being apprenticed to Robert Campin, almost at the same time, by the way, as Jacquelotte Daret, one Willemet and Haquin de Blandin (in 1426). The term apprentis (apprentice) had a different meaning in Tournai than in other guilds such as in Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp. Apprentice was the last stage before one could become freemaster and the term was fixed at four years. In this light, 27 years was not an abnormal age to be registered as apprentis. By the way, we see the same course with Daret, but of him we know that he had also previously been employed by Campin as an apprentice. Also the use of diminutive forms for the first names, Rogelet, Jacquelotte and Willemet is quite normal when talking about apprentices, regardless of their age. So there is no reason to associate the use of the name "Rogelet" with a second Van der Weyden as some authors have done in the past. Meanwhile, that contention seems completely outdated.

Artistic career

After the troubles with the commune in Tournai and the return of the émigrés, Robert Campin was convicted for the first time under the new ultra-conservative regime in 1429 on March 21 for refusing to accuse a guild brother, which was seen as "withholding the truth" (pour oultraiges d'avoir célé vérité). He had to make a pilgrimage to Saint-Gilles-du-Gard in Provence, was fined 20 pounds and was also barred from all public functions for life. The punishment must not have seemed sufficient to Campin's opponents because two years later there is a new charge against him for years of adultery with one Leurence Polette. He was sentenced to a year's exile on July 29, 1432.

A document dated August 1, 1432, shows that Rogier de le Pasture was recognized as a freemaster on that date, two days after the condemnation of Master Campin: Maistre Rogier de le Pasture, natif de Tournay, fut reçue à le francise du mestier des paintres le premier jour d'aoust l'an dessudit. This registration of Rogier as a freemaster thus immediately followed the conviction of his master Robert Campin for adultery. By the way, it is noteworthy that Campin's other apprentis were also appointed freemasters shortly thereafter, Willemet (no surname known) on Aug. 2 and Jacques Daret on Oct. 18. That the trial was rigged can be seen from the fact that Campin's banishment was lifted on Oct. 25 through the intercession of the "duchess" of Hainault, Margaret of Burgundy.

After his appointment as master in 1432, things remained quiet around Rogier until he apparently settled permanently in Brussels in 1435. His colleague Jacques Daret also left Tournai in 1434 and settled temporarily in Atrecht. Rogier's move to Brussels may have been related to the period of riots and turmoil in Tournai between 1423 and 1435, but the presence of the Burgundian court in Brussels will certainly have played a role in the young master's decision. Even after his move, Rogier van der Weyden continued to maintain good contacts with Tournai. In the city's accounts we find several payments to a "maistre Rogier le pointre" for works he had executed there, and also the famous Braque triptych of c. 1452-1453 was a commission from Catherine de Brabant of Tournai. The guild accounts of 1463-1464, moreover, show that he was not forgotten in Tournai: item payent pour les chandèles qui furent mise devant saint Luc, à cause de service Maistre Rogier de le Pasture, natyf de cheste ville de Tournay lequel demoroit à Brouselles.

What he did between 1432 and 1435 and where he stayed at the time is not documented. But most sources situate the Descent from the Cross that Rogier painted on behalf of the Leuven marksmen's guild for the chapel of Our Lady of Ginderbuiten, now in the Prado in Madrid, around 1435. Some believe he remained in Tournai but others place him in Leuven, Bruges and Ghent. Dirk De Vos very definitely situates Rogier van der Weyden's studio in Tournai and bases this, among other things, on the extensive works that Rogier carried out with collaborators in the Margareta Church for which he is mentioned in the accounts as 'Maistre Rogier'. That he did not work alone is evident from an account of the church factory about a treat for the 'compagnons pointres de le maisme Rogier'. Probably also at the end of his Tournai period, Rogier painted his first triptych, an Annunciation, possibly commissioned by Oberto de Villa, a Piedmont banker. The work is now kept in the Louvre. This is Rogier's work in which the influence of Jan van Eyck is most evident, after which he will increasingly go his own way.

The first document mentioning Van der Weyden as a city painter dates from May 2, 1436. The document lists a number of measures taken by the city of Brussels because of the precarious financial situation created by the decline of the cloth weaving industry. Among other things, the document states that the position of city painter will be abolished after Rogier's death. Normally, a city painter was in charge of organizing the annual circumambulation and coordinating the works for it. With that alone, the man was busy for six months. He normally received an annual salary, a quantity of wine and ceremonial clothing. But Rogier van der Weyden had a different status and assignment. He was probably solicited and appointed by the magistrates of Brussels to decorate the new City Hall wing for which, indeed, he painted The Justice of Trajan and Herkenbald for the "Golden Chamber" or small courtroom. Of these four monumental justice panels, two were about Emperor Trajan and Pope Gregory the Great and two were about Herkenbald. The works were unfortunately destroyed when the city was shelled by French troops in 1695. Rogier enjoyed a special status because his clothing allowance was at the level of the "geswoerene cnapen" a higher category than that of the "wercmeesteren" to which artisans were normally included. Apparently he had also stipulated that his contract with the city was not exclusive and that he could take on other assignments, which was also an exception, but he did not receive a fixed fee, he was paid by performance.

Since he worked in Brussels, Rogier must also have been enrolled in the Brussels painter's guild, but no documents have been found to further clarify this. Van der Weyden had two adjoining houses in the Magdalenasteenweg (or Guldenstraat) near the Cantersteen. Probably his studio was located there. Rogier must have had a host of pupils, but only two references to assistants or apprentices have been found in the archives. The first is about a tip for his assistants from the church masters of St. Margaret's in Tournai and the second about a tip from the abbot of St. Aubert's Abbey in Cameroon for the "ouvriers" when delivering a triptych.

A notable apprentice in the studio was Zanetto Bugato, who was apprenticed to Van der Weyden in the winter of 1460-1461 by order of Bianca Maria Visconti, the second wife of Francesco Sforza and Duchess of Milan. Apparently there were regular clashes between this apprentice and Rogier in which even the dauphin, later King Louis XI of France, is said to have intervened to calm tempers. The Duchess of Milan wrote a letter to Rogier on May 7, 1463, thanking him for training her court painter.

In all probability, Rogier's second son, Pieter who was born about 1437, also received his training in his father's studio. It was Pieter who took over the studio after his father's death and continued to lead it until 1516. There is a good chance that Pieter van der Weyden also continued to work with his father's assistants.

Louis le Duc, a nephew of Rogier, who enrolled as a freemaster in the guild of Tournai in 1453 and moved to Bruges in 1460, had in all likelihood also received his training in Rogier's studio. In addition, there are three more anonymous masters whose style and technique are believed to have worked in Rogier van der Weyden's studio for a long time. These are the Master of the Sforza Triptych, the Master of the lamentation of the Uffizi and the Master of the Johanna Triptych. Art historians believe that they were able to work quite independently in Rogier's studio, but that the works were sold under his name. There were undoubtedly many other assistants active in the studio but who, unlike the three mentioned above, could not work completely independently.

Some believe that Hans Memling also worked as an assistant in Rogier's studio; in any case, he appeared to know Van der Weyden's work well, and it is a fact that Memling settled in Bruges as a freemaster on January 30, 1465, a few months after Rogier's death. According to an inventory prepared in 1516, there was in the collection of Margaret of Austria a triptych with a Man of Sorrows painted by Rogier van der Weyden with angels painted on the side wings by "maistre" Hans, presumably Hans Memling. Modern research with infrared reflectography of the work of Memling and Van der Weyden would also show that the young Memling had a thorough knowledge of Rogier's techniques. As it usually goes, these theses and Vasari's obscure reference to a certain "Ausse," translated by art historians as Hans, as Rogier's pupil in his 1550 edition of the Vite are doubted by others.

In 1450, on the occasion of the Holy Year proclaimed by Pope Nicholas V, Rogier van der Weyden traveled to Rome. Bartholomaeus Facius describes in his De Viris Illustribus in 1456, so hot off the press, that Rogier had great admiration for Gentile da Fabriano's (now vanished) frescoes in the church of St. John of Lateran. Facius, the Italian humanist was in the service of King Alfons V of Aragon in Naples where he vouched for the education of his son, the later Ferdinand I of Naples, and was appointed royal historian. In his De Viris Illustribus, he described only four painters, namely Gentile da Fabriano, Antonio Pisano (Pisanello), Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden. He mentions several works that Rogier would have painted in Italy, namely a Bathing Lady in Genoa, a Descent from the Cross in Ferrara where Lionello d'Este was margrave until 1450 and two Passion scenes in Naples. None of these works survived. After his journey, he is said to have painted a Sacra Conversazione in Brussels for an Italian patron (the Medici's), now in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt as Virgin and Child and Four Saints, inv. no. 850. In addition, the Lamentation of Christ, now in the Uffizi in Florence, is also said to be by his hand and also painted on commission by the Medici's. This work repeats a theme of Fra Angelico, but otherwise little Italian influence in the works attributed to Rogier van der Weyden can be demonstrated.

In addition to the religious works of Rogier van der Weyden and his studio, we also know of a number of portraits by him. Most of these works were created after 1450 with one exception, the portrait of a young woman, perhaps his wife Ysabiel Goffaert, which was painted in his Tournai period between 1432 and 1435. We can divide the portraits into two types, the ordinary portrait on the one hand, and the devotional portraits on the other. Those devotional portraits were actually diptychs, where on one panel the portrayed patron was represented in prayer before the saint on the other panel the saint himself. In the portraits known to us, that saint was always a Madonna and Child. Two of those portraits can still be designated as diptychs, of the other the Madonna has been lost. Likewise, there are a number of Madonnas whose corresponding portrait no longer exists. Of those devotional portraits, only seven male portraits and one female portrait have survived.

In addition to the diptych portraits, Rogier painted a number of state portraits of the Burgundian Duke Philip the Good, his wife Isabella of Portugal and members of his family and his court, as well as other important people. These include portraits of Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, Anthony of Burgundy and Philip of Croÿ.

It was not abnormal for artists in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries to practice both panel painting and miniature art. Examples are legion, of Simon Marmion, Gerard David, Barthélemy van Eyck, Gerard Horenbout, Jacob van Lathem, Fra Angelico and many others, we know with certainty that they were engaged in both miniature painting in tempera on parchment and painting on panel.

This apparently was also the case for Rogier van der Weyden, all things considered it is generally accepted that the frontispiece with the commissioned miniature of the first volume of the Chroniques de Hainaut was painted by Rogier. These Chronicles of Hainaut were commissioned by Philip the Good in 1446 to give his rights to Hainaut a historical basis. Philip is presented as the legitimate heir in a long line of rulers that would go back to the Fall of Troy. The books were translated from Latin into French by Jean Wauquelin and illuminated by a plejade of miniaturists. The original, the Annales historiae illustrium principum Hannoniæ, was written in Latin at the end of the 14th century by Jacques de Guise. The manuscripts were written by the copyist Jacotin du Bois based on Wauquelin's translation.

The commissioned miniature in the first part was probably painted about 1448. Again, there is no documentary evidence that Rogier made the miniature, but the style of the work refers very clearly to Van der Weyden, according to most art historians. Several of the characters in the miniature were also portrayed by Rogier van der Weyden, which allows the portraits to be compared to the miniature. These included Philip the Good himself, Chancellor Nicolas Rolin (the man in blue to the right of Philip) who was also portrayed on The Last Judgment in the Hôtel Dieu in Beaune and Bishop Jean Chevrot (in red next to Rolin) who appears on the Triptych of the Seven Sacraments (KMSKA). The first portrait of the duke, of which only copies are preserved, must have been painted for the miniature. This makes one suppose that Rogier was commissioned for the miniature because the Duke was satisfied with the earlier portrait. The miniature functions as a group portrait of Philip the Good with his court council.

No other miniatures by Rogier's hand are known. Miniature art is generally regarded as very different from panel painting, but this work corresponds in size (148 x 197 mm) to the smallest panels Rogier painted, such as the enthroned Madonna in a niche, and therefore posed no problem for Rogier. The technique of painting with tempera on parchment is obviously very different from panel painting but this too apparently posed no problems for the master, on the contrary, the execution proves the great expertise of the master. As a matter of fact, one assumes in the current state of research that Rogier van der Weyden probably came into contact with miniature art already in Robert Campin's studio.

During his lifetime and after his death, Rogier was acclaimed throughout Europe as a great painter. He had patrons far beyond our borders. Works by him are documented in Italian, Spanish and German collections and churches in the 15th and 16th centuries. Yet no work has survived that can be attributed to Rogier with absolute certainty (through orders or other documents). About three works art historians today do agree that they are by Rogier namely the Miraflora Triptych now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the Crucifixion of Scheut in the Escorial and the Descent from the Cross in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. The Miraflora Triptych was donated by Johan of Castile to the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores near Burgios in 1445. The deed of gift mentions the painter as "Magistro Rogel, magno, & famoso Flandresco." Of the Crucifixion of Scheut we know that the work was donated to the monastery of Scheut by Rogier, and was described in 1574 as painted by "Masse Rugie" for "la cartuja de brussellas" and for the "Descent from the Cross" there are several sixteenth-century sources that attribute the work to Rogier.

List of attributed works

The following list of works attributed to Rogier van der Weyden is constructed on the basis of the reasoned oeuvre catalog compiled by Dirk De Vos in his standard work on the painter: Rogier van der Weyden. The complete oeuvre, published by the Mercatorfonds, Antwerp, 1999. The works included by De Vos in his 'problematic attributions', 'misattributions' or 'lost works' are not included in this list.

Discussion of some works

Rogier's "Magnum Opus" was the so-called History of Herkenbald and Trajan, a series of justice scenes intended for the council chamber (current Gothic Hall) of the Brussels Town Hall on the Grand Place and produced between 1440 and 1450. The monumental work depicts eight scenes from the lives of Trajan and Herkenbald spread across four large painted wooden panels, each more than four meters in height and width. The work was lost in 1695 during the bombardment of Brussels by the armies of Louis XIV of France. We know it only from numerous descriptions and eulogies that visitors wrote down about it in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries and from fragmentary copies and variants (some drawings and a large tapestry) that offer echoes of its lost splendor. The tapestry Trajan and Herkenbald referring to this group of works is kept in the Historisches Museum of Bern.

The painted scenes in the Brussels town hall were intended as an "exemplum justitiae," a frightening example for the aldermen who had to govern well and administer justice. It served as an exhortation to the administrators to perform their duties conscientiously. They were hung against the long blind inner wall of the hall and thus directly opposite the benches on which the aldermen and judges sat. The judges thus had these "exemplars" permanently before their eyes. The panels with larger-than-life figures were praised for their particularly successful depiction of emotions. At the bottom were texts explaining the story. One of the panels featured a self-portrait of Van der Weyden.

The tapestry surrounding this performance was also on display at the major retrospective at the Museum M in Leuven in the fall of 2009. Some well-known Flemish actors voiced an audio play for the audio guide when viewing this tapestry.

The most important and influential work that can be attributed to Van der Weyden is the Descent from the Cross, which is today in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. This work is perhaps the most influential painting in all of 15th-century art history. For centuries it remained a benchmark for the depiction of emotions in religious art.

The work was on the high altar of the chapel of Our Lady of Ginderbuiten in Leuven, the chapel of the "Great Guild of the Footbow," from 1443. Mary of Hungary buys the painting from the footbow guild around 1548, for the low cost of an organ of 500 guilders and a copy of the painting by her court painter Michiel Coxcie. She had the work transferred to her new palace in Binche, where it had been displayed in the chapel in 1549. The painting then came into the possession of Philip II, Mary's nephew, who had seen it on a visit to his aunt in 1549. Vincente Alvarez who was part of the prince's party said it was probably the most beautiful painting in the world, but did not name a painter although he undoubtedly knew who it was about. In 1564 it had been set up in the chapel of El Pardo, the prince's country residence, and in 1566 it was transferred to the so-called Escorial or in full the Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo in El Escorial. It wasn't until 1939 that the Descent from the Cross ended up in the "Museo del Prado.

The form, composition and use of color of this work are remarkable.

The somewhat oversized figures of this work are as it were encased in a basin with an elevation in the center to depict the cross. Such retable boxes were quite common in Brabant at that time. The painting style of the figures refers to polychromed images and it is therefore said that Rogier's intention was to represent a polychromed retable. But Van der Weyden goes much further than that, the retable cabinet is at most a shoulder width deep (see the figure of Mary Magdalene leaning against the cabinet) and yet Rogier manages to represent five depth layers: Mary swooning, behind her the body of Christ with Joseph of Arimathea behind him, the plane of the cross and behind it the helper in his damask tunic. So it is much more than the conversion of a relief representation into a two-dimensional painting that was realized here. The carefully studied composition with the rhyme in the arm movement of two figures placed in the foreground (Mary and her son) and the composition line falling to the lower left add even more drama to the theme of the Descent from the Cross (which is already loaded). The almost life-size figures possess a very high degree of detail and realism and are distinguished by precise fabric expression. Hair, beards, fabrics and furs are almost tangibly present, and yet the composition as a whole gives a clenched, pared-down and synthesized impression. No detail gives the impression of being superfluous. This is not so much a descriptive detail realism as with Jan van Eyck but rather a synthetic detail realism. The work is conceived in such a way that it makes an impression on any contemplative distance. The viewer can, as it were, zoom in on the work almost endlessly. The entire structure of the work is focused on expressing and conveying emotions.

This work, when unfolded, has as its subject the Last Judgment and has been exhibited at the Hospices de Beaune in France. It consists of nine panels, some of which are still in their original frames. Originally the entire work consisted of oil on oak panels; later portions were transferred to canvas. Rogier van der Weyden most likely painted it between 1445 and 1450. Without the frames, it is 220 cm high and 548 cm wide.

Mary Magdalene reads is the name of a work kept in the National Gallery in London. It is one of three remaining fragments of a large altarpiece. The other fragments are in the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon. The original panel showed a large company of holy men and women in a spacious room around a enthroned Madonna with Child. The National Gallery's Seated Magdalene is the largest preserved fragment. The painting was reconstructed from a late-fifteenth-century drawing of part of it: Virgin and Child with a Holy Bishop, John the Baptist and John the Evangelist that is preserved in Stockholm. Since no other fragments of the work have been recovered, it is thought that the original work was once badly damaged and that the usable portions were recovered. The other preserved fragments, a head of St. Joseph and of St. Catherine(?), are almost exactly the same size and thus were deliberately cut to the same size. Behind Magdalene, we see part of an upright figure; the head of Joseph from Lisbon perfectly matches this. De Vos dates this work, contrary to other art historians who place it before 1438, approximately at the time when Rogier and his workshop began work on the Polyptych of the Last Judgment commissioned by Chancellor Rolin, i.e. around 1445.

That Rogier van der Weyden already enjoyed tremendous prestige throughout Europe during his lifetime is evident from numerous archival documents and literary texts surviving from his time. But even after his death Rogier was not forgotten, from the seventeenth century there are several testimonies that people still regarded the work of Rogier van der Weyden highly despite the changed taste and fashion, in the time of Peter Paul Rubens.

During his lifetime he first became known outside of Flanders in Italy. This may have been due to his Rome trip in 1450, but no doubt also to the fact that there was a great interest in painters in Italian humanist circles at that time because people no longer considered painters to be craftsmen but intellectuals. But even before Rogier's Rome voyage, he was well known in Italy. In July 1449, the powerful Lionello d'Este, Marquis of Ferrara, proudly showed a triptych by Van der Weyden from his possession to the scholar Cyriacus of Ancona, who then described it enthusiastically, labeling Rogier's art as "rather divine than human. From payments dating from the years 1450-1451, it is known that Leonello ordered other works from Van der Weyden. These accounts again show the esteem in which Rogier was held. He was described in them as excelenti et claro pictori M. Rogerio.

There was also a very early interest in his work in Spain and, in particular, in the emotions he was able to incorporate into his religious works. In 1445, King Johan II of Castile donated the so-called Miraflora Triptych (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie) to the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores near Burgos, which he founded and benefited. This event was mentioned in the annals of this monastery, and proudly the artist's name was also mentioned (which was very unusual at the time) as, "Magistro Rogel, magno, & famoso Flandresco" (Master Rogier, great and famous Fleming).

The brilliant German scholar and cardinal Nicolaus Cusanus was full of praise for Rogier's History of Herkenbald and Trajan which he had seen in the Brussels Town Hall and which he mentioned in his work De visione Dei. In this context, he called Rogier the "greatest of painters"; Rogeri maximi pictoris. Even Albrecht Dürer who was usually very sparing with accolades to other painters said of Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van der Goes: sind beede grossmaister gewest.

In the second half of the sixteenth century, his work was still held in high esteem, just think of Philip II, who managed to obtain two of Rogier's main works, the Descent from the Cross and the Crucifixion of Scheut, and had them hung in his everyday environment. The Antwerp painter, engraver and publisher of prints from the second half of the sixteenth century, Hieronymus Cock, also published a print of the Descent from the Cross in 1565 and explicitly referred to the author, Rogier van der Weyden. The print with Rogier's portrait from the Pictorum Aliquot Celebrium Germaniae Inferioris Effigies, published in Antwerp by Hieronymus Cock in 1572 also features a highly praising text by the humanist Dominicus Lampsonius. With Karel van Mander in his well-known Schilderboeck, there is some confusion because he speaks of a "Rogier van Brussel" and a "Rogier van Brugghe

Museums

The following is a list of museums that own works attributed to Rogier van der Weyden according to the mounted oeuvre catalog prepared by Dirk De Vos.

In the museums listed below one can also find works attributed to Rogier but not included in the catalogue raisonné of Dirk De Vos, in other words, works whose attribution is questioned or for which it is known that the work is a copy after the master. The latter includes the Portrait of Philip the Good in the Groeninge Museum in Bruges and that of Isabella of Portugal in the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Principals

The (not exhaustive) list below of patrons who commissioned works or copies of them illustrates that Rogier van der Weyden was a celebrated artist.

Influence

We find a particularly large number of copies in the work attributed to Rogier van der Weyden and his studio. It should be noted here that copying works of art in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance did not have the negative connotations we give it today. Copying was a fairly normal thing in those days and all the great masters participated in it. Rogier's work was already being copied during his lifetime and this continued until more than a century after his death, deep into the sixteenth century. This undoubtedly has to do with the fact that Rogier was already a celebrity during his lifetime and that over the course of his long career he formed a crowd of apprentices and also had a significant number of collaborators in his studio. He was praised for the way he depicted emotions in his works and the example par excellence of this, the Descent from the Cross, was already copied in 1443 for St. Peter's Church in Louvain, the so-called Nobleman's Triptych. A total of 50 copies of this work are known, but there are also 30 of the Bladelin table as well as the Triptych of the Cross from Vienna. But also The Saint Luke draws the Madonna, a number of Madonnas and the portraits of princes were copied frequently.

A number of copies can be related to studio practice. A study of the surviving work shows that the studio workers had a whole series of models at their disposal, ranging from drawings to cartons or a calque with punch holes in it to apply the design in dotted line to the prepared panel. In Rogier's studio, which was continued after 1464 by his widow and his son, these models were gratefully used to produce new paintings. Images of the various types of Mary with Child derived from Van der Weyden's work were mass-produced for sale on the open market. Hélène Mund says that there must have been hundreds of these if one considers how many have survived.

But these models were also copied outside the studio or made on the basis of existing paintings. There are thus a whole series of works 'after Rogier van der Weyden' by masters who had nothing to do with his studio. Among the artists who copied work by Rogier are the 'Master of the Legend of Lucia', Adriaen Isenbrant and Ambrosius Benson, all three working in Bruges. But also the Master of the Ursula Legend from Bruges and the Master of the Magdalene Legend painted a Madonna derived from the Madonna in Saint Luke draws the Madonna.

There are also the copies that are commissioned. The well-known example is the copy, now lost, by Michiel Coxie of the Descent from the Cross for Mary of Hungary, but Isabella of Castile also commissioned copies of the Miraflora Triptych and of the St. John Triptych at the end of the 15th century.

In Spain, a number of copies of the Durán Madonna, a painting, now in the Prado, that depicts Mary dressed in red, with Jesus on her lap engaged in crumpling leaves in a manuscript that Mary was reading, emerged after Rogier's death. The theme was copied by the Spanish Master of Alvaro de Luna and by the Brussels Master of Embroidered Foliage in his Virgin and Child and Music-making Angels now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Lille.

After the closure of Pieter van der Weyden's studio, Rogier's art continued to exert influence in the Southern Netherlands but also far beyond. At home, among many others, we can cite the names of Hans Memling in Bruges and Dirk Bouts in Leuven. In Brussels, we can mention Colijn de Coter and Vrancke van der Stockt, who continued to paint in the style of the master and adopted compositions and motifs from his work, along with a whole series of small masters from the Brussels school. But painters outside Flanders, such as the anonymous Master of the Bartolomeüs Altar, working in the Rhineland, Friedrich Herlin in Swabia and Martin Schongauer in Alsace were also very much influenced by Van der Weyden's art. In fact, Rogier's work was copied not only by painters but also by tapestry weavers, sculptors, miniaturists and fire-glass painters. A good example is a depiction of the Madonna and Child suckling, derived from the Mary in St. Luke draws the Madonna but now depicted half-skulled, in the Book of Hours of Joanna of Castile and Joos van Cleve the famous Antwerp master painted another copy of the Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der Weyden around 1520. Rogier's compositions would continue to serve as models for numerous works throughout the sixteenth century. Van der Weyden had set the tone for generations of painters with his creativity and unparalleled way of depicting emotions.

Sources

1. Rogier van der Weyden
2. Rogier van der Weyden
3. De ontstaansperiode van Het Lam Gods van de gebroeders Van Eyck valt nagenoeg samen met de waarschijnlijke ontstaansperiode van de Kruisafneming van Rogier van der Weyden.
4. Doornik was Frans kroondomein tussen 1187 en 1521. In de periode 1410 tot 1483 stond het onder de invloed van de Bourgondische hertogen, het was in die periode volledig omringd door de Bourgondische gebieden. Zie ook: Wim Blockmans, De Rugerio pictore, in: Rogier van der Weyden 1400-1464. De passie van de meester, ed. Lorne Campbell en Jan Van der Stock, Davidsfonds Leuven, 2009, p. 26.
5. La documentación relativa a los primeros años de vida del pintor se encuentra recogida en Theodore H. Feder, «Rogier van der Weyden, a reexamination trough documents of the first fifty years of Roger van der Weydens Life», The Art Bulletin, vol. 48, nº. 3/4 (septiembre-diciembre, 1966), pp. 416-431.
6. Άντριου Μπελ: «Encyclopædia Britannica» (Βρετανικά αγγλικά) Encyclopædia Britannica Inc.. biography/Rogier-van-der-Weyden. Ανακτήθηκε στις 20  Σεπτεμβρίου 2021.
7. ^ Campbell, 9
8. ^ Campbell, 7