Presenter: Candace Brown
Authors: Candace Brown
Faculty Advisor: Elliott Wise
Institution: Brigham Young University
In 2006, the Washington National Gallery’sPrayers and Portraitsexhibition on Netherlandish devotional diptychs defined the genre as two distinct panels hinged or hung side by side. While the distinction is valuable and has led to thoughtful scholarship on visual and tactile relationships in the images it has also overshadowed works where important figures are paired in ways consistent with the original Netherlandish understanding of the “diptych” as simply two images together regardless of technical arrangement. One such work is thePortrait of a Ladyfrom the Workshop of Rogier van der Weyden. For decades, the piece has been presented and and passed over as a simple portrait in the style of Van der Weyden’s own, more significant portraits. However, the oft-neglected panel verso reveals a personal spiritual purpose far beyond the simple preservation of a noblewoman’s image. Behind the woman’s modern, carefully maintained portrait is an archaic, Byzantine-style portrait bust of Christ, likely predating its companion portrait. For a significant work such as a portrait, the use of this recycled panel could not have been accidental. Additionally, considering that the original panel shows the sacred face of Jesus Christ, it is inconceivable that a culturally pious woman and her commissioned artist would have made the addition out of indifference. This intentional style choice would allow the woman to publicly claim her social place as a wealthy, intelligent woman in an act of social aspiration, but more importantly it would privately serve as a devotional manifesto. By placing the images back to back, the artist implies a unique auditory relationship between the woman and Christ, to represent the means by which the woman will achieve the Northern Renaissance Christian ideal of total spiritual union with Christ.