Portrait of a Man (Jan van Winckele?):
Catalogue entry

Catalogue contents

About the catalogue

Full title: Portrait of a Man (Jan van Winckele?)
Artist: Dirk Bouts
Inventory number: NG943
Author: Lorne Campbell
Extracted from: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings (London, 1998)

Dirk Bouts
NG 943
Portrait of a Man (Jan van Winckele?)

Lorne Campbell, 1998

Extracted from:
Lorne Campbell, The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Schools (London: National Gallery Publications and Yale University Press, 1998).

Oil with some egg tempera on oak panel, 32.5 × 21.5 cm, painted surface 31.6 × 20.5 cm

Dated•1462•

Provenance

The portrait was by 1831 in the collection of Karl Aders (1780–1846), a German merchant who lived in London.¹ It was sold with the rest of the Aders collection at Foster’s on 1 August 1835 (no. 111) to Solly – presumably the collector Edward Solly (1776–1848). By 1844,² it belonged to the poet and collector Samuel Rogers (1763–1855), after whose death it was sold at Christie’s on 2 May 1856 (no. 599) to Pearce. This was the dealer William Warburton Pearce, who was probably buying for Wynn Ellis (1790–1875).³ Certainly in Wynn Ellis’s possession by 1857, it was, at the time of his death, in the library of his residence at 30 Cadogan Square, London.⁴ Wynn Ellis bequeathed his collection to the National Gallery and NG 943 was one of the paintings accepted by the Trustees in 1876.

Exhibitions

Aders exhibitions, London 1832–5 (2);⁵ BI 1848 (61); BI 1850 (11); Manchester 1857 (provisional catalogue 496, definitive catalogue 400); BI 1860 (38); Leeds 1868 (524); ‘Exhibition of Portraits’, NG 1939 (not catalogued); London 1945 (not catalogued); London 1975 (6); ‘The Artist’s Eye: Richard Hamilton’, NG 1978 (2); ‘The Artist’s Eye: Patrick Caulfield’, NG 1986 (no number).

Versions

Three painted versions are known, all of which appear to be nineteenth‐century or early twentieth‐century fakes.

1: A reversed copy with a fake Memling ‘signature’ was sold by Puttick and Simpson in London on 26 November 1931 (no. 12), and was in 1933 in the collection of Richard Schmitt, Hagen (Westphalia).⁶
2: A fake, claimed to be a self portrait by Memling and partly based on NG 943, was in 1938 in the collection of Aug. Schubert at Mönchen Gladbach.⁷
3: Another version was in the de Ridder collection.⁸

Because in the nineteenth century NG 943 was believed to be a self portrait by Memling, several artists used it as a basis for imaginary paintings of Memling: for example Albrecht De Vriendt (1863–1900) in an oil sketch of 1889 (Antwerp);⁹ and Edmond van de Hove (1851–1913) in his Madonna of the Arts ( c. 1893, Bruges, Gruuthusemuseum).¹⁰

Engravings

1: A lithograph based on a line drawing was published in 1833.¹¹
2: According to the Aders exhibition catalogue and the Aders sale catalogue of 1835, ‘This Portrait has been engraved at Bruges, by the permission of the proprietor’. The reference is probably to a lithograph by Pierre‐Jean De Vlamynck (1795–1850), which was used to illustrate a book published in Bruges in 1840.¹²

Technical Notes

The portrait was cleaned in 1952 and is in very good condition. There are insignificant losses in the knuckle of the little finger of the sitter’s right hand, in the drapery near his left elbow and in his hat.

The panel is a single piece of oak, vertical in grain; it measures 32.5 × 21.5 cm, is approximately 6 mm thick and has a slight convex warp. Peter Klein has established that the oak is from the Baltic region and that the 215 growth rings were formed between 1222 and 1436.¹³ The unpainted edges survive on all four sides but appear to have been slightly trimmed. The reverse, bevelled a little on all four sides, has never been painted. It is inscribed, in pencil, on the paper tape at the top left corner: ‘N° 7’; mainly concealed by paper labels and partly covered by stencils is another inscription in black, which seems mostly to have been obliterated but which may include the number 40. Stencilled in black are ‘20’ and ‘WYNN ELLIS ESQ’. The paper labels are a cutting from the Aders sale catalogue of 1835, two labels from the Manchester exhibition of 1857 and a paper inscribed ‘Memling./ Portrait of the Artist, when/ a patient in the Hospital/ of S^t. John at Bruges, in the/ dress of the Hospital./ Engraved./ Exhi^d. at Manchester/ N° 20. Wynn Ellis, Esq.’

The chalk ground is covered with a thin priming of lead white. Infra‐red photographs and reflectograms reveal some sketchy underdrawing, in a liquid medium. In the red lake glaze on the sitter’s garments, the medium is linseed oil, heat‐bodied and containing a little pine resin. Walnut oil is used for the white paint of the sky. The binding medium in the underpaint of the sky is egg.

The index, middle and ring fingers of the sitter’s right hand are underdrawn in different positions. It is more difficult to interpret an underdrawn shield‐shaped form which appears in the upper left corner and crosses the frame of the glazed shutter, and other indistinct lines, mainly in the area of the shutter (figs 1, 2). Some slight changes were made during the course of painting, when the contours of the sitter’s chin, his face next to his mouth, his hat and his left shoulder were slightly reduced. In the X‐radiographs, a disturbance in the image of the window‐sill probably indicates a change in that area.

Description

The sitter has greenish‐blue eyes, light brown hair and very pale lips. His clothes and hat are all approximately the same colour, a purplish pink painted in mixtures of red lake, azurite and white. His standing collar may possibly be velvet but his other outer garments appear to be woollen. A small part of his white shirt is visible at his neck and his standing collar is closed with a green lace, passing through blue‐grey metal eyelets. The sleeves of his robe, visible on his right arm and at his left wrist, are lined and trimmed with brown fur. His [page 47][page 48] right sleeve is slit vertically to reveal the sleeve of his doublet and the slit is closed with a button across his upper arm. His outer garment is a cloak opening over his right shoulder and slung across his left arm. Short cloaks opening over the right shoulder were evidently fashionable around 1460 and are worn by two of the young men in Jean Le Tavernier’s presentation miniature, painted between 1458 and 1460, in the ‘Anciennes croniques et conquestes de Charlemaine’ ( BR , MS 9066, fol. 11).¹⁴ It is unusual that all the sitter’s clothes – hat, doublet, robe and cloak – are much the same colour.¹⁵ He is in the corner of a room by an open window and the shutter behind him is glazed with bull’s‐eye glass. A similar glazed shutter, where the glass is set into leaded lozenges, is found in van der Weyden’s Saint Luke drawing the Virgin (Boston)¹⁶ and a completely glazed closed window is depicted in the Passover panel of Dirk Bouts’s altarpiece of the Sacraments.¹⁷ Through the window, a church with a high steeple is prominent in a flattish landscape which recedes to a mountainous horizon. On the wall behind the sitter is the date •1462•. The stop on the left and the number 2 are painted as though they project from the wall; the other numbers and the stop on the right are as if carved into the wall. The significance of this has not been explained.

**Fig. 1**
Infra‐red reflectogram showing the upper part of the shutter (© The National Gallery, London)

**Fig. 2**
Infra‐red reflectogram showing part of the shutter (© The National Gallery, London)

Attribution

In the nineteenth century, NG 943 was believed to be a self portrait by Memling and to have come from the Hospital of St John at Bruges.¹⁸ The same claim was made for a painting now in Frankfurt, which is indeed by Memling but which is not a self portrait and clearly represents a different man.¹⁹ It was also stated that the sitter in NG 943 was dressed as a patient of the hospital and that he was nursing an injured arm:²⁰ but the patients wore red and blue uniforms²¹ and the sitter’s clothes, although odd in some ways, have nothing to do with the Hospital of St John. There is no reason to believe that his arm is injured. Passavant, visiting Bruges in 1831–2, could find no evidence to support the story that the portrait came from the hospital and no reference has been found in descriptions of the hospital to a portrait that might be identified as NG 943.²²

According to Crowe and Cavalcaselle and others, NG 943 may be a picture seen by Marcantonio Michiel in 1530–1 in the collection of Zuan Ram, a Catalan settled in Venice. Michiel described it as ‘the portrait of Roger of Brussels, the celebrated old master, in a small picture in oil on panel, bust length, done by the hand of the same Roger, done in a mirror in 1462’.²³ What was perhaps the same painting, an ‘old picture’ of ‘an elderly German’, was listed in an inventory taken in 1592 of the possessions of Zuan’s grandson Alessandro Ram.²⁴ Michiel’s descriptions and attributions are not invariably reliable but it seems unlikely that Zuan Ram’s portrait was NG 943 and possible that it was indeed a self portrait by Rogier van der Weyden.

The portrait was first attributed to Dirk Bouts by Crowe and Cavalcaselle in 1857 and their attribution has been generally accepted.²⁵ The picture is the earliest datable, and the only dated, painting attributed to Bouts; in style it is entirely consistent with his documented altarpiece of the Sacraments, of 1464–8. Though Bouts knew all about vanishing points, the sill of the window is out of perspective.²⁶ Instead of rising from left to right, it is horizontal and its near contour is parallel to the lower edge of the picture. His reasons for distorting the perspective may have been purely aesthetic. The alternation of light and shadow across the portrait is marvellously contrived so that the lit side of the sitter’s face is silhouetted against the shadowed glass of the shutter while the shadowed side of his hat and face is silhouetted against the lit area of wall behind.

NG 943 is the earliest dated portrait of a sitter in an interior with an open window giving onto a landscape.²⁷ As very few portraits of the period are dated, this fact is of little significance. A portrait by Petrus Christus (NG 2593), which admittedly may be the wing of a diptych or triptych rather than an independent portrait, also shows a man in an interior between an open door and an open window giving onto a landscape. It was probably painted at least ten years before [page 49] NG 943. The idea of making the sitter’s hands appear to rest on the frame had been developed by Campin (compare his Portrait of a Woman, NG 653.2, and the Portrait of a Franciscan, from his workshop, NG 6377) and van der Weyden (compare the Portrait of a Woman from his workshop, NG 1433).

**Fig. 3**
Lecturer and students, from George Lichton’s lecture notes (1467). Aberdeen, University Library, MS 109, fol. 51v. Reproduced with permission of Aberdeen University Library

The Identity of the Sitter

The portrait, dated 1462, was probably painted in Louvain, where Dirk Bouts was then living. The sitter’s very plain clothes may suggest a connection with the University of Louvain, for the university authorities fulminated against ‘indecent’ clothes and constantly attempted to regulate the dress of students and teachers. The statutes drawn up between 1446 and 1459 laid down that graduates and students should wear ‘clerical’ garments, which were to be undecorated and long; they were not to be ‘of different colours, at all events in the same garment’.²⁸ The earliest known representations of a Louvain teacher and several students are four sketches in a volume of lecture notes made in 1467 by George Lichton, a student from Moray in Scotland (fig. 3).²⁹ The men are all in long robes; the teacher’s hat and robe are both red; all their hats have ‘stalks’ and are similar to, though in some cases higher than, [page 50] the hat in NG 943. According to regulations approved by Charles the Bold in 1477, students were to wear mantles open at the front; but graduates, so that they might be distinguished from students, were permitted to wear mantles that opened at one side.³⁰

The sitter in NG 943 is too old to be a student but is perhaps a graduate, teacher or official of the university. The officials, most of whom were graduates and were therefore bound by the statutes on dress, must have worn simple clothes to impress upon the students the importance of sobriety. One of them was Jan van Winckele, who on 17 April 1475 witnessed Bouts’s will and who owned at least two of his paintings.³¹ In 1462, the year in which NG 943 was painted, Jan was made Notary to the Conservator of the Privileges of the University.³² He was interested in dates, for in 1499 he held a festivity to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation as magister.³³ It seems possible that NG 943 is a portrait of Jan van Winckele, dressed plainly, as the university authorities ordained, but with some minimal concessions to contemporary fashion; Bouts may have painted the portrait to commemorate Jan’s appointment of 1462.

Jan van Winckele or vanden Winckele came from Antwerp. He was probably born in the 1420s, studied at Louvain, graduated as magister on 14 May 1449, and on 28 July 1462 was elected Notary to the Conservator. His uncle Jan Boels had just resigned this office, which Jan van Winckele held until his death in June 1505.³⁴ The Conservator himself, who ranked third in the university hierarchy, was the Abbot of St Gertrude at Louvain. He must have delegated most of his responsibilities to his Notary, who was an official of some importance and who was usually assisted by at least one other notary. The Court of the Conservator dealt with cases involving members of the university with outsiders, lay people or ecclesiastics.³⁵ Jan van Winckele prospered and it was later claimed that in some years he had paid in ‘tax’ to the university the enormous sum of 100 Rhenish florins.³⁶ In 1462 he acquired a house in the Hoelstraat (now the Tiensestraat) and afterwards he bought and sold other properties in and near Louvain.³⁷ He is said to have been a friend of Erasmus³⁸ and in 1503 he sold a house to Adrian of Utrecht, afterwards Pope Adrian VI.³⁹ Jan married twice. His first wife Catharina Vullincx died on 17 August 1473 and was buried in the church of the Priory of St Ursula, which was affiliated to the Windesheim Congregation. On her tomb were an effigy, or perhaps a painted portrait, and an elegant Latin distich commemorating her virtues.⁴⁰ His second wife, who bore him a son in about 1488, before they were married, was Mechtilde, a daughter of the town painter Hubert Stuerbout.⁴¹ In his will, dated 10 June 1505, Jan mentioned two paintings by ‘Master Theodoricus, painter’, that is, by Dirk Bouts: an Adoration of the Kings and a Head of the Saviour.⁴² He laid down that, if his children died without issue, all his property should go towards the foundation of a college.⁴³ He was buried in the church of St Michael.⁴⁴ His son Jan van Winckele the younger was the last survivor of the family and on his death in 1555 the Collegium Winckelianum was set up on the site of their house in the Hoelstraat.⁴⁵

If Bouts’s sitter is indeed Jan van Winckele the elder, the portrait would have been painted when he was in his thirties. It could have passed to his widow, who married as her second husband Jan van Bouchout;⁴⁶ or it might have gone, with the rest of his property, to the Collegium Winckelianum, which was reconstructed in 1750 and closed in 1797 with the rest of the university. The building passed to the town of Louvain and was used for various purposes until it was demolished in 1962.⁴⁷

General References

Friedländer , vol. III, no. 12; Schöne 1938, pp. 87–8; Davies 1953, pp. 42–5; Davies 1968, pp. 17–18.

Notes

1. Passavant 1833, p. 94. For Aders and his collection, see p. 12. (Back to text.)

2. A. Jameson, Companion to the most celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London, London 1844, p. 405. (Back to text.)

3. For the association between Pearce and Wynn Ellis, see MacLaren and Brown 1991, p. 22. (Back to text.)

4. Schedule filed with extracts from Wynn Ellis’s will, NG archive. (Back to text.)

5. For these exhibitions see p. 13. (Back to text.)

6. Photograph and correspondence in the NG dossier. (Back to text.)

7. Photograph and correspondence in the NG dossier. Part of the landscape background is taken from Memling’s Virgin and Child in Berlin: Friedländer , vol. VI, no. 23A. (Back to text.)

8. Schöne, p. 87 note 1. The photograph which he mentioned, in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt, cannot now be found there (letter of 13 June 1995 from Jochen Sander). (Back to text.)

9. D. Marechal, ‘Memlings faam en fictie’, Brugge, Stedelijke Musea & Museumvrienden, Museum Bulletin, vol. XIV, no. 5, November 1994, pp. 1, 12. The sketch is for a mural in the Gotische Zaal of the Stadhuis in Bruges but is not followed in the finished painting. (Back to text.)

10. Ibid. , pp. 12–13. (Back to text.)

11. Passavant 1833, facing p. 94. (Back to text.)

12. O. Delepierre, Galerie d’artistes brugeois, Bruges 1840, facing p. 18. (Back to text.)

13. Report in NG dossier, dated 7 April 1995. (Back to text.)

14. Frequently reproduced, for example by Scott 1986, p. 93. (Back to text.)

15. Scott 1986, p. 97, describes the clothes. (Back to text.)

16. Friedländer , vol. II, no. 106 c. (Back to text.)

17. Friedländer , vol. III, no. 18. For windows and glazed shutters, see F.‐L. Génicot, ‘Un châssis de fenêtre du XVIe siècle au musée de Louvain‐la‐Neuve’, Revue des archéologues et historiens d’art de Louvain, vol. XX, 1987 (Hommage à Jazeps Trizna), pp. 234–52. (Back to text.)

18. Passavant 1833, p. 94. (Back to text.)

19. Ibid. , p. 391; Friedländer , vol. VI, no. 73. Passavant tried to reconcile the discrepancies by supposing that NG 943 was earlier than the Frankfurt portrait and showed the same sitter recovering from a serious illness. (Back to text.)

20. Passavant 1833, p. 94. (Back to text.)

21. Represented in an eighteenth‐century view of the hospital, reproduced in H. Lobelle‐Caluwé, Musée Memling, Bruges, Fribourg 1985, pp. 20–1. (Back to text.)

22. Passavant 1833, p. 94. (Back to text.)

[page 51]

23. Crowe and Cavalcaselle 1857, pp. 190 note 1, 193. Michiel’s text is ‘El ritratto de Rugerio da Burselles pittor antico celebre, in un quadretto de tauola a oglio, fin al petto, fo de mano de linstesso Rugerio fatto al specchio nel 1462’ (T. Frimmel, ed., Der Anonimo Morelliano, Vienna 1888, p. 104; reprinted by Davies 1953, p. 45). (Back to text.)

24. ‘Tre quadri vecchi, cioè uno della Madonna, un vecchion todescho, et un tellaro’: see W. Bode, G. Gronau and D. von Hadeln, eds, ‘Archivalische Beiträge zur Geschichte der venezianischen Kunst aus dem Nachlass Gustav Ludwigs’, Italienische Forschungen herausgegeben vom Kunsthistorischen Institut in Florenz, vol. IV, 1911, p. 77. (Back to text.)

25. Crowe and Cavalcaselle 1857, pp. 295, 365. At the National Gallery it was catalogued in 1877 as Memling, in 1889 as Flemish School and in 1911 as Bouts. (Back to text.)

26. Bouts’s perspective is discussed in Collier 1975. (Back to text.)

27. Panofsky 1953, p. 316; Campbell 1990, p. 115. (Back to text.)

28. ‘De vestibus et moribus doctorum, magistrorum, licentiatorum, baccalariorum et aliorum scolarium … Item quilibet predictorum incedat in vestibus clericalibus, non incisis seu per particulas dispendentibus, non indecenter accurtatis, nec bipartitis, stripatis, scacatis, aut diversorum colorum saltim in qualibet veste per se et caligis non diversorum colorum, nec cum torquatibus, fibulis sertis aut aliis laycalibus ornamentis’ (A. van Hove, ‘Statuts de l’université de Louvain antérieurs à l’année 1459’, BCRH , vol. LXVII, 1907, pp. 597–662, p. 635). This passage, like much else in the same regulations as well as comparable passages in the 1427 and 1429 statutes of the Louvain Faculty of Arts, is copied almost verbatim from the 1392 statutes of the University of Cologne (J. Goossens, ‘De oudste algemene statuten van de Universiteiten van Keulen en Leuven, Een vergelijkende tekstanalyse’, Archives et bibliothèques de Belgique, vol. XLVIII, 1977, pp. 42–78, p. 71). The words ‘aut diversorum colorum saltim in qualibet veste per se’, however, do not occur in the earlier statutes. (Back to text.)

29. University Library, Aberdeen, MS 109: see N.R. Ker, ‘For All that I may Clamp. Louvain Students and Lecture‐Rooms in the Fifteenth Century’, Medium Ævum, vol. XXXIX, 1970, pp. 32–3; colour reproductions of three of the drawings in R. Aubaert et al. , Leuven University 1425–1985, Louvain 1990, p. 133. (Back to text.)

30. ‘Et si predicti graduati capas pro honestate deferre voluerint, eas a latere tantum apertas et ante clausas ad differenciam scolarium deferre poterunt. Magistri vero arcium regentes a sua facultate illas etiam deferant tales sicut predicti graduati’ (E. Reusens, Documents relatifs à l’histoire de l’Université de Louvain (1425–1797), Louvain 1881–1903, vol. I, p. 692). (Back to text.)

31. Schöne 1938, pp. 231, 247. (Back to text.)

32. V. Andreas, Fasti Academici Studii Generalis Lovaniensis, 2nd edn, Louvain 1650, p. 73. (Back to text.)

33. J. Molanus, Les Quatorze livres sur l’histoire de Louvain, P.F.X. de Ram, ed. (Commission royale d’histoire), Brussels 1861, vol. II, p. 861. (Back to text.)

34. H. de Vocht, Literae virorum eruditorum ad Franciscum Craneveldium 1522–1528, Louvain 1928, pp. 212–23, and references. (Back to text.)

35. For biographies of the Conservators, see M. Smeyers, ‘Abbaye de Sainte‐Gertrude, à Louvain’ in Monasticon belge, IV, Province de Brabant, vol. IV, Liège 1970, pp. 908–16; for the office of Conservator, see Aubaert et al. (cited in note 29), p. 34; for the assistants, Andreas (note 32), pp. 73–4. (Back to text.)

36. De Vocht (cited in note 34), p. 298. (Back to text.)

37. H. de Vocht, Inventaire des archives de l’Université de Louvain 1426–1797 aux Archives générales du Royaume à Bruxelles (Inventaires des archives de la Belgique), Louvain 1927, pp. 210–11, 236. (Back to text.)

38. De Vocht 1951–5, vol. I, p. 442 note 3. (Back to text.)

39. De Vocht, Inventaire, p. 236. (Back to text.)

40. Reusens, Documents (cited in note 30), vol. III, p. 144. The tomb was ‘Cum effigie et hoc distycho: VIRTUTE, INGENIO PRAESTANS, PROBITATE, DECORE / DEVOTA ET PATIENS, CARA QUIESCE DEO’. On the church and priory, see E. Persoons, ‘Prieuré de Sainte‐Ursule, à Louvain’ in Monasticon belge, IV, iv (cited in note 35), pp. 1323–32. They were married by 1470; her brother Jan Vullincx was a pewterer (H. vander Linden, ‘Rapport sur une mission aux archives de Berlin’, BCRH , vol. LXXII, 1903, pp. 305–533, p. 501). (Back to text.)

41. For Mechtilde Stuerbout, see van Even 1866–9, 1866, pp. 251–2; Reusens (cited in note 30), vol. III, p. 144; de Vocht, Inventaire, p. 209. (Back to text.)

42. Schöne 1938, p. 247. (Back to text.)

43. De Vocht, Literae, p. 213. (Back to text.)

44. Reusens (cited in note 30), vol. III, p. 142. The church was demolished in 1781: see E. van Even, Louvain dans le passé & dans le présent, Louvain 1895, pp. 371–3. (Back to text.)

45. Andreas (cited in note 32), p. 231; Reusens (cited in note 30), vol. III, pp. 142–3; De Vocht, Literae, p. 213. (Back to text.)

46. Van Even 1866–9, 1866, p. 252: both were living on 11 May 1519. (Back to text.)

47. Van Even, Louvain, p. 592; exhibition catalogue 550 jaar Universiteit Leuven, Stedelijk Museum, Louvain 1976, pp. 79–80; Aubaert et al. (cited in note 29), pp. 30–1, 61. (Back to text.)

Abbreviations

BCRH: Bulletin de la Commission royale d’histoire; previously Compte Rendu des séances de la Commission royale d’histoire ou Recueil de ses Bulletins
BI: British Institution, London
BR: Bibliothèque Royale Albert Iᵉʳ, Brussels
NG: National Gallery, London

List of archive references cited

Aberdeen, University Library, MS 109: George Lichton, lecture notes, 1467
Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale Albert Iᵉʳ/Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België, MS 9066: ‘Anciennes croniques et conquestes de Charlemaine’
London, National Gallery, Archive, curatorial dossier for NG943
London, National Gallery, Archive, curatorial dossier for NG943: Peter Klein, report, 7 April 1995
London, National Gallery, Archive: extracts from Wynn Ellis’s will

List of references cited

550 jaar Universiteit Leuven 1976: 550 jaar Universiteit Leuven (exh. cat. Stedelijk Museum), Louvain 1976
Andreas 1650: Andreas, V., Fasti Academici Studii Generalis Lovaniensis, 2nd edn, Louvain 1650
Aubaert et al. 1990: Aubaert, R., et al., Leuven University 1425–1985, Louvain 1990
Bode, Gronau and Hadeln 1911: Bode, W., G. Gronau and D. von Hadeln, eds, ‘Archivalische Beiträge zur Geschichte der venezianischen Kunst aus dem Nachlass Gustav Ludwigs’, Italienische Forschungen herausgegeben vom Kunsthistorischen Institut in Florenz, 1911, IV
Campbell 1990: Campbell, Lorne, Renaissance Portraits: European Portrait‐Painting in the 14th, 15th and 16th Centuries, New Haven and London 1990
Caulfield 1986: Caulfield, Patrick, The Artist’s Eye: Patrick Caulfield. An Exhibition of National Gallery Paintings selected by the Artist (exh. cat. National Gallery, London), London 1986
Collier 1975: Collier, J.M., ‘Linear Perspective in Flemish Painting and the Art of Petrus Christus and Dirk Bouts’ (Ph.D. thesis), University of Michigan, 1975
Crowe and Cavalcaselle 1857: Crowe, Joseph Archer and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, The Early Flemish Painters: Notices of their Lives and Works, London 1857
Davies 1953: Davies, Martin, Les Primitifs flamands, I. Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pays‐Bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle, 3, The National Gallery, London, Antwerp 1953, I
Davies 1954: Davies, M., Les Primitifs flamands, I. Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pays‐Bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle, 3, The National Gallery, London, Antwerp 1954, II
Davies 1968: Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: Early Netherlandish School, 3rd edn, London 1968
Davies 1970: Davies, M., Les Primitifs flamands, I. Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pays‐Bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle, 11, The National Gallery, London, Brussels 1970, III
Davies 1972: Davies, M., Rogier van der Weyden, London 1972
De Vocht 1927: Vocht, H. de, Inventaire des archives de l’Université de Louvain 1426–1797 aux Archives générales du Royaume à Bruxelles, Inventaires des archives de la Belgique, Louvain 1927
De Vocht 1928: Vocht, H. de, Literae virorum eruditorum ad Franciscum Craneveldium 1522–1528, Louvain 1928
De Vocht 1951–5: De Vocht, H., The History and Foundation of the Collegium Trilingue Lovaniense 1517–1550, Université de Louvain, Recueil de travaux d’histoire et de philologie, 3^e sér., vols IV, V, X, Louvain 1951–5
Delepierre 1840: Delepierre, O., Galerie d’artistes brugeois, Bruges 1840
Friedländer 1967–76: Friedländer, Max Jacob, Early Netherlandish Painting, eds Nicole Veronée‐Verhaegen, Gerard Lemmens and Henri Pauwels, trans. Heinz Norden, 14 vols in 16, Leiden and Brussels 1967–76
Génicot 1987: Génicot, F.‐L., ‘Un châssis de fenêtre du XVIe siècle au musée de Louvain‐la‐Neuve’, Hommage à Jazeps Trizna, 1987, 234–52 (Revue des archéologues et historiens d’art de Louvain, 1987, XX)
Goossens 1977: Goossens, J., ‘De oudste algemene statuten van de Universiteiten van Keulen en Leuven, Een vergelijkende tekstanalyse’, Archives et bibliothèques de Belgique, 1977, XLVIII, 42–78
Hall 1994: Hall, E., The Arnolfini Betrothal: Medieval Marriage and the Enigma of van Eyck’s Double Portrait, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London 1994
Hamilton 1978: Hamilton, Richard, The Artist’s Eye: An Exhibition Selected by Richard Hamilton (exh. cat. National Gallery, London, 1978), 1978
Jameson 1844: Jameson, Anna B., Companion to the Most Celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London, London 1844
Ker 1970: Ker, N.R., ‘For All that I may Clamp. Louvain Students and Lecture‐Rooms in the Fifteenth Century’, Medium Ævum, 1970, XXXIX, 32–3
Lobelle‐Caluwé 1985: Lobelle‐Caluwé, H., Musée Memling, Bruges, Fribourg 1985
MacLaren and Brown 1991: MacLaren, Neil, revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School 1600–1900, 2 vols, revised and expanded edn, London 1991
Marechal 1994: Marechal, D., ‘Memlings faam en fictie’, Brugge, Stedelijke Musea & Museumvrienden, Museum Bulletin, November 1994, XIV, 5, 1–12
Michiel 1888: Michiel, Marcantonio, Der Anonimo Morelliano: Marcanton Michiel’s Notizia d’opere del disegno, ed. Theodor Frimmel, Vienna 1888
Molanus 1861: Molanus, J., Les Quatorze livres sur l’histoire de Louvain, ed. P.F.X. de Ram, Commission royale d’histoire, Brussels 1861
Panofsky 1953: Panofsky, E., Early Netherlandish Painting, Its Origins and Character, Cambridge, Mass. 1953
Passavant 1833: Passavant, Johann David, Kunstreise durch England und Belgien: nebst einem Bericht über den Bau des Domthurms zu Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt‐am‐Main 1833
Persoons 1970: Persoons, E., ‘Prieuré de Sainte‐Ursule, à Louvain’, in Monasticon belge, 1970, IV, iv, 1323–32
Reusens 1881–1903: Reusens, E., Documents relatifs à l’histoire de l’Université de Louvain (1425–1797), Louvain 1881–1903
Schöne 1938: Schöne, W., Dieric Bouts und seine Schule, Berlin and Leipzig 1938
Scott 1986: Scott, Margaret, A Visual History of Costume: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, London 1986
Smeyers 1970: Smeyers, M., ‘Abbaye de Sainte‐Gertrude, à Louvain’, in Monasticon belge. Province de Brabant, Liège 1970, IV, 908–16
Van Even 1866–9: Even, E. van, ‘Monographie de l’ancienne école de peinture de Louvain’, Messager des sciences historiques, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1–55 & 241–338 & 261–315 & 439–97 & 454–86 & 44–86 & 147–95 & 277–341
Van Even 1895: Even, E. van, Louvain dans le passé & dans le présent, Louvain 1895
Van Hove 1907: Hove, A. van, ‘Statuts de l’université de Louvain antérieurs à l’année 1459’, Compte rendu des séances de la Commission royale d’histoire, ou Recueil de ses Bulletins/Bulletin de la Commission royale d’histoire, 1907, LXVII, 597–662
Vander Linden 1903: vander Linden, H., ‘Rapport sur une mission aux archives de Berlin’, Compte rendu des séances de la Commission royale d’histoire, ou Recueil de ses Bulletins/Bulletin de la Commission royale d’histoire, 1903, LXXII, 305–533

List of exhibitions cited

Leeds 1868: Leeds, Leeds Infirmary, National Exhibition of Works of Art, 1868
London 1832–5: London, Aders exhibitions, 1832–5
London 1848, British Institution: London, British Institution, 1848
London 1850: London, British Institution, 1850
London 1860: London, British Institution, 1860
London 1939: London, National Gallery, Exhibition of Portraits, 1939
London 1945: London, National Gallery, Exhibition of Returned Pictures, May 1945
London 1975, National Gallery: London, National Gallery, The Rival of Nature: Renaissance Painting in its Context, 9 June–28 September 1975
London 1978, National Gallery: London, National Gallery, The Artist’s Eye: An Exhibition Selected by Richard Hamilton, 1978 (exh. cat.: Hamilton 1978)
London 1986, National Gallery: London, National Gallery, The Artist’s Eye: An Exhibition Selected by Patrick Caulfield, 1986 (exh. cat.: Caulfield 1986)
Manchester 1857: Manchester, Old Trafford, Exhibition Hall, Art Treasures of the United Kingdom Collected at Manchester in 1857, 5 May–17 October 1857

The Organisation of the Catalogue

In my essay on ‘The History of the Collection’ I have described how it has been built up and have concentrated on the revival of interest in Early Netherlandish paintings during the mid‐nineteenth century. In my introduction, on ‘Netherlandish Painting in the Fifteenth Century’, I have endeavoured to place the collection in a broader historical context by commenting on the painters and their patrons and the ways in which the pictures were used. I have explained at some length how the painters’ workshops functioned; how their assistants were employed; how the necessary reference material was gathered, used and circulated. I have attempted briefly to describe how the pictures were painted and have taken this opportunity to put together our results from different groups of pictures and to make tentative generalisations about materials, working practices and techniques. I have speculated upon the painters’ aspirations.

The pictures are catalogued under the artists’ names, taken in alphabetical order. The Master of the View of St Gudula and the other anonymous painters to whom art historians have assigned names of convenience are listed under ‘Master’. For each painter a brief biography is given, in which his securely authenticated works are listed, in which some reference may be made to questions of chronology and in which relevant information on assistants may be given. In a few cases, for example those of Hugo van der Goes and Rogier van der Weyden, the biographies are longer and particular issues bearing on the pictures catalogued are discussed. The paintings by each artist are then considered; the pictures attributed to him; those from and attributed to his workshop; those by his followers; and finally those thought to be copies after his originals. Within all these categories, the paintings are arranged in numerical order of inventory number.

If a painting is described as by a particular artist, it is assumed that he painted it, with the usual amount of help from his assistants. If it is described as by the artist and his workshop, it is implied that the assistants were very largely responsible but that there was some direct intervention by the master. If a picture is described as from an artist’s workshop, it is implied that it was painted by one or more assistants, under the master’s supervision, perhaps from his designs but without his direct intervention. If a picture is described as by a ‘follower’, the implication is that the follower was an imitator active outside the workshop, though he may have been a former assistant. ‘Attributed to’ indicates some degree of doubt about the precise classification.

Except in one or two cases, the title given for each picture has been taken verbatim from the 1968 catalogue. The media and support are more adequately described under ‘Technical Notes’. The measurements given were taken by Rachel Billinge and myself: height precedes width. As few of the supports are perfectly regular in shape, the dimensions are those where the support and the painted surface reach their highest or widest points. The thickness of a panel has usually been measured at the centre of the lower edge. The provenance of each picture is briefly outlined and exhibitions are listed – including exhibitions at the Gallery and elsewhere for which no catalogues were issued. Versions and engravings are briefly listed. There may well be further discussions of provenance and versions in the main part of the catalogue entry.

The ‘Technical Notes’ section begins with an account of what is known, or what can be deduced, about conservation treatments – excluding minor interventions such as blister‐laying or surface‐cleaning. This is followed by a brief condition report, where I have indicated any major losses or areas of serious abrasion and where I have attempted to describe any changes, for instance in colour, that have radically altered the appearance of the picture. I have mentioned the frame only if it is original or if deductions can be made about the appearance of the lost original frame. The support, generally an oak panel, is then described; the results of any dendrochronological investigations are included here. Inscriptions, seals and other marks on the reverse of the panel are noted. Next comes an account of the materials used in the ground, the underdrawing, the priming and the paint layer. This constitutes a short summary of the results obtained when the picture was examined; detailed reports on the samples taken are on file in the Scientific Department. I have then included some general remarks on the style of the underdrawing and on any differences between what is underdrawn and what is painted. This introduces a discussion of changes made during the course of painting. For some pictures, I have closed this section with remarks on any particularly striking aspects of the painting technique.

Under ‘Description’, I have pointed out details that may not be immediately visible in the original or in a good colour reproduction and have attempted to identify all the objects represented, including articles of clothing. It is perhaps inevitable that the smaller pictures have been more intensively studied and are more fully described than the larger and more complex compositions. The Description is usually, though not invariably, followed by a discussion of the subject of the picture: occasionally a discussion of the iconography – for instance that of a portrait – finds its logical place after the attribution and date have been established. Commentaries on the function of the painting, its patron, its attribution and its date follow in the order that I considered reasonable and appropriate in that particular case. I have summarised with some care the opinions of respected authorities such as Passavant, Friedländer and Hulin de Loo; I have referred constantly to previous Gallery catalogues and always to those by my predecessor Martin Davies. Any useful observation or comment I have of course taken into account. I have not seen fit, however, to burden my text with endless citations of books, articles or exhibition catalogues where the authors express but do not justify opinions or merely repeat the findings of others. I could not attempt to list every published reference to every picture. The admirable indexes kept in the National Gallery Library allow exhaustive bibliographies to be compiled. Under ‘General References’, I have included only a few items. Davies’s Corpus volumes (a, b, c) and the 1968 edition of his catalogue are always cited, as is the English edition of Friedländer’s Early Netherlandish Painting. Standard monographs are included, for example Davies on van der Weyden, and any studies which treat a particular picture sensibly and in great detail, for example Hall’s book on the Arnolfini portrait or articles [page 11]in the National Gallery Technical Bulletin. In the ‘Notes’, I have given essential citations so that anyone can check my sources. Occasionally I have included in the notes short digressions which may interest some readers but which are not vital for an understanding of the entry. I have employed the abbreviations listed below. Frequently cited books and articles are referred to by the author’s surname and the date of publication: full details will be found in the List of References, which is exactly that and which must not be treated as a Bibliography.

Comparative illustrations are included if they are considered absolutely essential for an understanding of the entry or if reproductions are not readily accessible elsewhere – in Friedländer’s Early Netherlandish Painting or in other standard works. Place names have been given in the forms most familiar to an English‐speaking reader: Bruges for Brugge; Louvain for Leuven; Mechlin for Mechelen (Malines); Ypres for Ieper. By Bonham’s, Christie’s, Foster’s and Sotheby’s are meant the London headquarters of those firms; for sales in other locations, the town is specified, as in ‘Christie’s, New York’.

In the catalogue entries, I have tried to explain the physical as well as the historical evidence in the most straightforward way, to make it accessible to the interested general reader as well as to the specialist. In presenting my own conclusions, I have endeavoured to make a clear distinction between fact and speculation. Anyone taking issue with my findings will have the relevant evidence at his or her disposal and will, I hope, be in a position to add to it and to refute or develop my arguments.

There are indexes of changed attributions, of subjects, of previous owners, by inventory number and a general index of proper names.

About this version

Version 2, generated from files LC_1998__16.xml dated 14/03/2025 and database__16.xml dated 14/03/2025 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 03/01/2025. Entries for NG664, NG747, NG755-NG756, NG783, NG943, NG1280, NG1432, NG2922 and NG4081 proofread and corrected; date of original publication, formatting of headings for notes and exhibition sections, and handling of links to abbreviations within references, updated in all entries.

Cite this entry

Permalink (this version): https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EH3-000B-0000-0000
Permalink (latest version): https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E7Z-000B-0000-0000
Chicago style: Campbell, Lorne. “NG 943, Portrait of a Man (Jan van Winckele?)”. 1998, online version 2, March 14, 2025. https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EH3-000B-0000-0000.
Harvard style: Campbell, Lorne (1998) NG 943, Portrait of a Man (Jan van Winckele?). Online version 2, London: National Gallery, 2025. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EH3-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 20 March 2025).
MHRA style: Campbell, Lorne, NG 943, Portrait of a Man (Jan van Winckele?) (National Gallery, 1998; online version 2, 2025) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EH3-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 20 March 2025]

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Portrait of a Man (Jan van Winckele?):Catalogue entry