Gerard David
NG 1432 
The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor

Lorne Campbell, 1998

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

Oil on oak panel, 107.7 × 146.8 cm, painted surface 105.8 × 144.4 cm

Inscriptions

On the Magdalen’s pot are the letters AMA, possibly [MARI] A MA[GDALENA]. Written on her headband is the inscription MAGDALE[NA]. The form of the letter M is unusual, perhaps Byzantine in origin: it recurs in other paintings by David, in Memling’s signatures and elsewhere.¹

Provenance

The donor is Richard de Visch van der Capelle, Canon and Cantor of the Collegiate Church of St Donatian in Bruges. He endowed a chapel there; NG 1432 may have been placed in the chapel.² It is not established with absolute certainty that the painting was ever in the church, which was plundered in 1578 and demolished in 1799–1800. NG 1432 was first recorded in a sale at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris on 18 January 1877 (no. 12). In the catalogue it was claimed to have been painted by Hugo van der Goes in Italy ‘for the chapel of the marchesi Giustiniani, where it has remained until this day’.³ The marchesi Giustiniani were perhaps the heirs of the collector Vincenzo Giustiniani (1564–1637), a Genoese nobleman who settled in Rome and who was created a marchese in 1605. His heir the Marchese Pantaleo Giustiniani succeeded to the Roman property in 1857 and died in Genoa in 1867; his son Alessandro between 1882 and 1896 fought and lost a lawsuit with other members of the Giustiniani family and retired to Genoa.⁴ According to an article published in 1877, the painting had left its altar only to be sent directly from Italy to Etienne Le Roy:⁵ the celebrated Belgian restorer Etienne‐Victor Le Roy (1808–78), then in his declining years.⁶ According to Weale, however, it had remained in St Donatian’s at Bruges until 1793 and ‘has never travelled further south than Paris’.⁷ At the sale of 1877 it was bought by a dealer who sold it soon afterwards to Lebrun.⁸ By 1878 it belonged to Etienne‐Edmond Martin (1825–1906), second Baron de Beurnonville.⁹ Lot 287 at the Beurnonville sale in Paris on 14–16 May 1881, it had passed by 1888 into the possession of Yolande Marie Louise Duvernay (1813–94), widow of Stephens Lyne‐Stephens. Known as Pauline Duvernay, she had been a dancer at the Paris Opéra and in London but had retired in 1845 to marry a banker said to have been the richest commoner in England. She had residences at Roehampton, in Norfolk and in Paris, where she kept NG 1432. In Paris on 23 June 1888 she made a will bequeathing this and two other pictures to the National Gallery. Her bequest was received in 1895.¹⁰

Exhibition

Paris 1878 (116).

Technical Notes

Before being sold in Paris in January 1877, NG 1432 was cleaned, apparently by Etienne‐Victor Le Roy.¹¹ When it arrived at the National Gallery in 1895, a ‘darkened and dirty’ varnish was removed, ‘all but a thin pellicle and the picture [was] re‐varnished with mastic’.¹² Cleaned in 1977–8, it is in good condition. There are no significant losses, though the paint is worn in some places. Drying cracks are particularly obtrusive in and around the heads of Saint Barbara and the Magdalen. The central part of the cloth of honour behind the Virgin now appears blackish, because the medium has discoloured, but it was originally deep purple, patterned in paler purple, to represent velvet(?) folded in rectangles.¹³ Some of the copper green glazes have gone brown.

The panel is oak, is made up of four boards, horizontal in grain and laid horizontally, and is approximately 21 mm thick. The heights of the boards at the left edge are, from the top, 40.3 cm, 23.4 cm, 21.4 cm and 22.1 cm. They are apparently butt‐joined and are rather roughly finished at the back. The central join, strengthened at the reverse with five butterfly‐keys, has clearly been remade and the deep rebates on all four sides of the reverse are not original. There is widespread worm damage, especially along the joins and towards the left of the topmost board.¹⁴ On the obverse, the unpainted edges survive on all four sides.

The ground is chalk bound with animal glue. Infra‐red photographs and reflectograms reveal considerable amounts of underdrawing and various types may be distinguished. The initial(?) drawing is in what appears to be a dry material and is very free, with limited areas of hatching, often rendered in scribbled zig‐zags. The heads of the Virgin and Saint Catherine (figs 4, 1), but evidently not those of the four other principal figures (see fig. 3), are drawn in a liquid medium. Some of the draperies, for example the Magdalen’s mantle, have a very dark, bold underdrawing delineating folds and indicating areas of deep shadow. The pigment here has been tentatively identified as bone black.¹⁵ In the dog (fig. 2), the Child’s drapery and Saint Barbara’s veil, lines have been drawn, apparently in a dry material, over paint layers. They are not precisely followed in the paint subsequently applied. The lines of the grid of the patterned floor are lightly incised.

A lead‐white priming, evidently in an oil medium, has been applied on top of the ground. Malachite is present, often mixed with lead‐tin yellow, and ultramarine is used in the Virgin’s dress, in a thick glaze over an underpainting in azurite. The red lake glaze on Saint Catherine’s dress probably contains dyestuff extracted from the kermes insect, while the red lake component of the purple cloth of honour behind the Virgin seems to contain a mixture of dyestuffs extracted from the kermes insect and an insect of the Polish cochineal type.¹⁶ The medium is linseed oil and an excess of medium has caused drying cracks to develop in several areas.

A great many changes made during the course of execution are revealed by the reflectograms and by X‐radiographs. In the underdrawing the Virgin’s eyes were higher; the Child was drawn and underpainted wearing a shirt. He may have raised his left hand to the level of his sternum; his painted left [page 147][page 148] arm and hand are not underdrawn (fig. 4). In the drawing the donor wears a narrow band placed diagonally over his right shoulder. Though the jewelled ornament above the Virgin has an underdrawn outline, perhaps made with compasses, the patterns on the cloth of honour are not underdrawn. Some of the hands, for example the right hands of Saint Barbara and the Magdalen, have been drawn more than once. Saint Catherine’s left sleeve has been drawn in one position, reserved in another and painted in yet another. The dog has no reserve but is drawn and painted on top of the underpainting of the floor. The angel in the background is neither underdrawn nor reserved. The hair at the back of the donor’s head and the outer fold of his almuce extend beyond the reserves. None of the flowers is underdrawn or reserved. The tower ornament on Saint Barbara’s hat has been added at a late stage and her dress was underpainted with a round neckline. Different buildings were at least partially painted beneath the buildings on the right.

In the cloth of honour, the painter has laid in the lighter pattern on the central strip of purple cloth in a mixture of red lake, azurite and white. He has then painted the entire area with a mixture of red lake and azurite, which provided the ground colour of the pattern and enriched the appearance of the pattern itself.¹⁷ The cloth of gold bands edging this central purple strip were laid in in two layers of yellow earth. The pattern was then outlined in black, the highlighted gold threads were painted in lead‐tin yellow and finally azurite was applied, sometimes overlapping the lead‐tin yellow and the black, to complete the coloured pattern.

Description

The Virgin and Child are enthroned in a loggia floored with semi‐precious coloured stones set in regular patterns. The loggia is separated from the garden beyond by a kerb of grey stone; the invisible roof must be supported on the two columns of red marble. The cloth of honour, tied to the bases of the columns with grey cords, is of purple velvet(?) patterned in lighter purple and edged with bands of cloth of gold patterned [page 149][page 150] in blue. The same pattern recurs in David’s altarpiece at Rouen on the hem of Saint Barbara’s dress (fig. 10).¹⁸ Above the Virgin’s head hangs a round gold ornament set with jewels: it is almost exactly similar to the morse worn by God the Father in a panel (Louvre) from David’s Genoa altarpiece (fig. 11).¹⁹ The rosary draped over the child’s shoulder is of red (coral) and gold beads strung on a green cord. Saint Catherine of Alexandria is identified by her attributes, placed below her left hand: the wheel of her attempted execution and, thrust through its spokes, the sword of her martyrdom. Being a princess, she is very richly dressed: the pattern on her dress and mantle recurs in nearly exactly the same form in David’s Rouen altarpiece, in the God the Father already mentioned, from his Genoa altarpiece, and in several other paintings from the David group.²⁰ Saint Catherine’s sash is decorated with patterns of birds and fleurs‐de‐lis within lozenges. She receives from Christ the ring denoting their mystic marriage. On the right, Saint Barbara is identified by the tower which appears in the form of an ornament on her headdress and by the unfinished tower in the background behind her (fig. 5). She too is a princess and very richly dressed. On the strip of fabric at her neckline is a design incorporating two peacocks. Her dress is of figured cloth of gold and is sewn with pearls. A similar pattern is found on Saint Lucy’s dress in David’s Rouen altarpiece and in other paintings from the David group.²¹ The pages of her book are ruled in black and the fictive letters are red; the pipe is golden. On the extreme right, the Magdalen is identified by the inscription on her headband and, apparently, by the letters on her pot, which is her emblem and which she holds in her left hand. Her mantle is lined with a grey and black patterned fabric, perhaps damask.

The donor has grey hair and blue eyes (fig. 7). His fur‐trimmed robe is blue‐grey, with a damask‐like pattern; over it he wears a pleated rochet and he carries over his left arm an almuce of grey fur. These are the vestments of a canon. On the floor in front of him is a silver and silver‐gilt staff surmounted by a representation of the Trinity adored by a monk and a cardinal. This is one of the cantor’s staffs of the church of St Donatian at Bruges. Two staffs, given by Nicolaus de Bouchoute in 1338, are described in inventories of 1417, 1488 and 1539, in the last as ‘two silver staffs which the lords cantors use on solemn feast‐days. In one of them is the image of the Holy Trinity with two adoring figures, of silver‐gilt …’.²² Both were destroyed when the church was plundered in 1578. Next to the staff is a thick book, presumably a breviary, protected by a blue chemise and with bookmarks of red ribbon. In front of that is a black hat. The small greyhound has a red collar decorated with a little shield on which are the arms used by the de Visch van der Capelle family: argent, semé of crosses (which should be bottony‐fitchy but are too tiny to be precisely rendered) two barbels hauriant addorsed, all sable; in chief an inescutcheon (which should be or but is in fact grey) charged with a chevron gules. The first, canting coat is de Visch; the second is van Axel. Gui de Visch van der Capelle had married Marie van Axel; their son Jan de Visch (died 1413) incorporated the van Axel arms with his own and his descendants followed his example.²³

Beyond the loggia is a walled garden. Behind the donor are a columbine and strawberries. Behind Saint Catherine’s wheel are irises; between the Virgin and Saint Barbara are white and orange lilies; among the plants in the garden are roses and redcurrants. In the corner behind Saint Catherine is a fig tree. Between the garden and the wall is a fenced walk roofed with wooden trellises over which vines are growing. On the left an angel reaches up to pluck a bunch of grapes (fig. 7); on the right, behind Saint Barbara, the elderly bearded man dressed in black and carrying a wooden crutch is apparently Saint Anthony Abbot (fig. 5).²⁴

Beyond the wall is a town. The houses, ‘though not exactly like any buildings now remaining, remind one immediately of Bruges’.²⁵ A woman in a white headdress looks out of the window of the house behind Saint Catherine. A whitish stork with blackish wings and red legs perches on its chimney stack. At the upper window of the house to the right of the last, a cat appears. The bird on the right of the garden wall has blackish wings and a red breast: it is rather damaged but is perhaps a bullfinch.²⁶

The Identity of the Donor

In 1878 Weale correctly identified the donor as Richard de Visch van der Capelle, Canon and Cantor of the Collegiate Church of St Donatian at Bruges.²⁷ The donor is dressed as a canon; the staff beside him is one of the cantor’s staffs of St Donatian’s; and the coat of arms in the dog’s collar, used by several members of the de Visch family, reappears on the surviving fragment of Richard’s memorial brass (fig. 9).²⁸

Richard de Visch van der Capelle, often called de Capella or de la Chapelle, was illegitimate. Little is known about his mother Jacqueline, who was the daughter of Jan van Zijl²⁹ and who was dead by 1480. In that year Richard made a will in which he bequeathed £3 to Catharina van Zijl, wife of Roeland van Wommene.³⁰ She was clearly related to Richard and his mother. By 1519 she was a widow and living in the household of Bernardijn Salviati, Canon of St Donatian’s, one of Richard’s executors and the donor in NG 1045.³¹ She may have been related not only to Richard but also to Bernardijn, who would therefore have been Richard’s cousin as well as his friend. The ‘widow van Womene’ had two nieces who became Carmelite nuns at the convent of Sion in Bruges,³² to which Gerard David gave his altarpiece now in Rouen.

Richard’s father, another Richard van der Capelle, was a younger son of an important noble family. He studied canon law and made a successful career in the church. In 1393 he obtained, on the resignation of another member of the family, the eighteenth prebend of the Collegiate Church of St Donatian in Bruges – a prebend which between 1383 and 1511 was always held by a canon of the van der Capelle dynasty.³³ In 1417 the elder Richard became Provost of the Collegiate Church of Our Lady, also in Bruges. He owned land in the polders of Cadzand, north of Bruges, and, when an older brother died in 1446, he inherited more property in Cadzand and the family estates, including the ‘Capelle hof’, in and around Nieuwkapelle, south west of Diksmuide and south east of Veurne.³⁴ The Provost died in 1447 and his lands passed to his younger brother Maerten (died 1453) and then to Maerten’s daughter Jacqueline. She married Wouter van Halewyn, head of a large and powerful noble family seated at Halluin,³⁵ and there were other van der Capelle–van Halewyn marriages. The Provost had a second illegitimate son Wouter, who matriculated at the university of Louvain in 1461 and who was named as ‘my brother’ in Richard’s will of 1480;³⁶ also an illegitimate daughter Jossine, who married Léon van Halewyn and died in 1453.³⁷ It was perhaps one of her daughters who in the will of 1480 was mentioned as ‘my niece, the wife of Jacob van der Goes’. Also among Richard’s legatees were Catharina and Jacomine, daughters of Jan and Catharina de Brune: they were probably cousins of some degree, though no relationship was stated. The Provost had settled a generous income on Marie van der Gracht (died 1481), who was evidently his great‐niece and who founded the Carmelite church and convent at Geraardsbergen.³⁸ There were also family connections with Christiaan de Hondt, Abbot [page 152] of Ter Duinen, and with Maerten Reyngout, who founded the Carmelite convent of Sion in Bruges (fig. 8).³⁹ The de Hondts intermarried with the Wittebroot family of diamond‐cutters and were possibly related to Gerard David’s wife.⁴⁰

The Provost’s bastard son Richard must have been born in the 1420s and was educated at the Chapter school of St Donatian’s and at the university of Louvain, where he matriculated in or shortly after 1441.⁴¹ On 24 February 1444 he was named chaplain of the chaplaincy of Saint Barbara in the choir of St Donatian’s but, two days later, he resigned the chaplaincy to accept the eighteenth prebend of the Chapter, which his father had given up in his favour. On 2 March 1444 he was made a canon but the Chapter, because of his youth, declined to install him. He studied at Paris and Orléans and became a licentiate in law. Having been ordained subdeacon, he was finally admitted to the Chapter of St Donatian’s in 1457 and he was elected Cantor in 1463. The cantor was second only to the dean in the hierarchy of the church. Between 1472 and 1479 he held the office of chaplain to the leper‐hospital at Diksmuide, though he is unlikely to have spent much time there; by 1497 he was Dean of Veere in Zeeland and in 1498 he was presented to the parish of Sint Kruis outside Bruges.⁴²

Meanwhile he pursued a successful career at the Burgundian court. By March 1472 he was one of Charles the Bold’s councillors and masters of requests⁴³ and in 1473, when Charles set up his supreme court, the Parlement or Grand Conseil, at Mechlin, Richard was the eighth of the eight ecclesiastical councillors. The Parlement ceased to exist in 1477 but Richard remained a councillor and master of requests and in 1503, when the new Grand Conseil was established, he became the second ecclesiastical councillor.⁴⁴

Richard made a will on 1 March 1480 although, as a bastard, he had no right to do so. He added a codicil on 13 February 1482.⁴⁵ Having obtained letters of legitimation in 1487 from Maximilian and Philip the Handsome (they were registered, after some delay, in 1494)⁴⁶ and a licence in 1503 from the Chapter of St Donatian’s,⁴⁷ he became empowered to implement the will. The executors appointed in 1480 were Pieter Bogaert, Canon, Obedientiary and, from 1476, Dean of St Donatian’s;⁴⁸ Jean du Bois, lay councillor at the Mechlin Parlement;⁴⁹ and Burchard Keddekin, another canon of St Donatian’s and brother of the Abbot of Ter Doest.⁵⁰ Because all three had died, Richard must have added another codicil appointing the executors who did in fact deal with his estate. One was Bernardijn Salviati, a patron of Gerard David;⁵¹ another executor was Willem van Overbeke, secretary of the Grand Conseil and the owner of a Virgin and Child by van der Goes.⁵² Richard died at Mechlin on 3 September 1511, when he must have been well over eighty. His body was brought back to Bruges to be buried at St Donatian’s.⁵³

Little is known about Richard’s private life. His will of 1480 was written in his own hand.⁵⁴ One of his books has been discovered: a paper manuscript which contains Justinus’ epitome of Trogus Pompeius’ universal history, the Polyhistor of Solinus and a list of the Seven Wonders of the World. Richard himself punctuated and corrected the text.⁵⁵ He knew Jan Crabbe, Abbot of Ter Duinen, an important bibliophile and a patron of Memling.⁵⁶ Richard must have divided his time between the court at Mechlin and Bruges, where he was a member of the fashionable Confraternity of the Dry Tree⁵⁷ and where in 1497 he delivered an oration, in the presence of Philip the Handsome, when the Provost of St Donatian entered Bruges.⁵⁸

It is not known whether Richard made gifts to churches in Mechlin or elsewhere but he was a generous benefactor of St Donatian’s. His fervent devotion to Saint Catherine is best demonstrated by his will of 1480, where he commended his soul not only to God and the Virgin but also to ‘my lady Saint Catherine, martyr and virgin, and the bride of Christ’.⁵⁹ He instituted masses in her honour and, if he died away from Bruges and if his body could not be brought to be buried in [page 153] Bruges, he was to be interred in a church dedicated either to the Virgin or to Saint Catherine.

Richard was anxious to stress his connection with his noble grandfather Jan de Visch van der Capelle, who had died in 1413 and who was buried at St Donatian’s in a magnificent wall‐tomb in the chapel of Saint Anthony – the second chapel from the west door on the south side of the nave.⁶⁰ In his will of 1480 he desired that he should be interred in this chapel ‘where my grandfather and uncle are buried’ and that his mother’s body should be reinterred there. His own funeral, however, was to take place without ‘great pomp’. He expressed his own intention to found anniversaries and feasts in honour of Saint Catherine; in the codicil of 1482 he stated his desire to place in the chapel stone images of Saint Catherine, Saint Barbara and Saint Agnes and a new altarpiece (nova tabula altaris). The altar was to be decorated with curtains and other necessaries.⁶¹ If in his lifetime he failed to carry out his intentions, his executors were to implement them.

Richard was dilatory in putting his plans into effect. In about 1490 he ratified his anniversary; in about 1495 he endowed a sung mass in the chapel;⁶² in May 1500 he founded a feast in honour of Saint Catherine; and in the same year he gave new stone images of Saints Catherine, Barbara and Agnes.⁶³ In June 1500 he obtained permission from the Chapter to repair the chapel and put in new windows showing his arms and insignia and those of his ancestors buried in the chapel.⁶⁴ In 1502 he had leave to remove to other altars wooden and stone objects from around the altar and from elsewhere in the chapel and to replace them with other, more precious objects.⁶⁵ In September 1504 his mother’s body was reinterred in the chapel.⁶⁶ He bequeathed to the church: a golden cross, set with five diamonds, on a golden chain; a silver‐gilt reliquary with a silver‐gilt chain (on solemn feast‐days they were to be hung around the neck of the silver image of Saint Catherine which already belonged to the church and which was to be placed on the high altar); and his silver seal, with a silver chain, which was to be attached to the reliquary of Saint Donatian.⁶⁷ Nothing more has been discovered about the ‘new altarpiece’, which may have been commissioned by his executors.

Richard was buried in front of the altar of his chapel under a brass engraved with his effigy and epitaph. It was removed, probably when the church was plundered in 1578, cut up and recycled. Part of it, including the coat of arms, was exported to England and is now in the church of Thorpe in Surrey, where it forms part of the palimpsest brass of John Bonde, who had been one of the clerks of Henry VIII’s Household and who died in 1579 (fig. 9).⁶⁸

Other portraits of Richard occur in versions of the painting Charles the Bold presiding at the First Sitting of the Parlement of Mechlin. The earliest of them seems to be the panel painted by Jan Coessaet in 1587 (Mechlin, Stadhuis), which may be a copy after a lost picture of 1514–15 by Jan Schoof. Richard is the figure on the extreme right. Charles the Bold did not preside at the first sitting. Coessaet’s panel represents an imagined event and it is not clear whether much reliance can be placed on his portraits.⁶⁹

Attribution

At the sale of 1877, NG 1432 was attributed to Hugo van der Goes and the coat of arms on the dog’s collar was interpreted as his monogram. Michiels and Gonse realised that the painting was by Gerard David.⁷⁰ Weale, who at first thought that David might have collaborated with Patinir,⁷¹ afterwards agreed that it was entirely David’s work.⁷² This attribution, accepted by Friedländer and Davies, has never been disputed.⁷³

The style agrees very closely with that of the Rouen Virgin and Child with Saints, which David himself gave in 1509 to the Carmelite convent of Sion in Bruges (fig. 10). It is a larger picture (118 × 212 cm) with figures on a larger scale but the head of Saint Barbara and the draperies across the Virgin’s knees and under her feet are almost precisely similar to the corresponding parts of NG 1432.⁷⁴ The figures of the Virgin and Child in the Rouen painting are repeated on the same scale in a Virgin and Child at Genoa (Palazzo Bianco), the centre panel of an altarpiece once dated 1506 and painted for the abbey church of San Girolamo della Cervara near Genoa.⁷⁵ The underdrawn Child in NG 1432 was more like the Rouen and Genoa babies than the painted Child. The same textiles recur in all three works. In NG 1432 Saint Catherine wears the same cloth as Saint Catherine in the Rouen picture and God the Father (fig. 11) and the Archangel Gabriel in two of the upper panels (now in the Louvre and New York) of the Genoa altarpiece. The patterns on the bands that edge the cloth of honour behind the Virgin in NG 1432 are the same as that on the hem of Saint Barbara’s dress in the Rouen painting, while the central part of the cloth of honour and Saint Barbara’s dress in NG 1432 are patterned in much the same way as Saint Lucy’s dress in the Rouen altarpiece. The golden ornament hanging above the Virgin’s head in NG 1432 is very similar to the morse worn by God the Father in the Louvre panel from the Genoa altarpiece (fig. 11). The inscriptions on NG 1432 and on the Genoa altarpiece are similar and include the same unusual Ms.⁷⁶ In NG 1432 the Virgin’s hands are almost identical to those of the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows (Bruges, church of Our Lady) attributed to ‘Ysenbrandt’ (fig. 12).⁷⁷ He may have copied from NG 1432 or alternatively he may have followed a workshop pattern which David had used in NG 1432.

David evidently liked recycling ideas, though he was more inclined to repeat figures and ornament than landscapes. It seems clear that the Genoa, Rouen and London paintings were all produced in the same workshop at much the same period.

The head of the donor seems less sensitively painted than the heads of the other donors or of Bernardijn Salviati in NG 1045. The whites of Richard’s eyes are grey, whereas Salviati’s, like those of the saints in NG 1432, are pale blue. [page 155] The reddish shadows and pale grey highlights on Richard’s face are less deftly handled than the corresponding passages in Salviati’s head, while Salviati’s lips are striated to suggest texture but Richard’s are not. Richard’s head may have been painted by an assistant who closely imitated David’s style and technique. Alternatively David was not in direct contact with Richard and, working up his portrait from memory, or from a description, or from another artist’s likeness, he produced a less sensitively understood head. The grey whites of the eyes were perhaps intended to suggest Richard’s great age.

Richard would have known David, for both were members of the Confraternity of the Dry Tree;⁷⁸ he would also have known his work, for he had family connections with Maerten Reyngout, the founder of the convent of Our Lady of Sion,⁷⁹ and would presumably have heard that David had given the Rouen altarpiece to the convent church. Bernardijn Salviati, who was Richard’s friend and executor and perhaps also a relative, had close associations with the convent and was himself a patron of David.⁸⁰

Iconography, Original Location and Date

Weale believed that NG 1432 was painted for the altar of Saint Catherine in the chapel of Saint Anthony at St Donatian’s in Bruges. Knowing that the donor had leave to restore the chapel in 1500 and that he died in 1511, he dated the picture ‘between 1499 and 1511’ or ‘about 1501, or perhaps a little earlier’.⁸¹ Weale’s datings have been followed by most subsequent art historians, though Bodenhausen thought that it might have been commissioned in about 1501 but painted in about 1505–9, while Friedländer preferred a date towards 1511.⁸²

Weale did not know of the donor’s will of 1480 or the codicil of 1482. They show that, long before 1500, Richard had formed plans to endow the chapel and provide a new altarpiece. His plans, however, were carried out in a desultory way.

It is reasonable to suppose that NG 1432 was indeed the altarpiece of the chapel endowed by Richard van der Capelle. His particular devotion to Saint Catherine, the bride of Christ, has already been mentioned. Though his family chapel was dedicated to Saint Anthony, the altar was dedicated, or rededicated, to Saint Catherine. The inclusion of Saint Anthony in the background of NG 1432 and the prominence accorded to Saint Catherine and her Mystic Marriage strongly suggest that it was painted for this altar. In 1482 Richard planned to put on the altar a ‘new altarpiece’ and stone images of Saints Catherine, Barbara and Agnes. The stone images were on the altar in 1500 but it was probably Richard’s intention that they should eventually be placed above the altar‐painting. On the altar of Saint Anne in the church of the Carmelite convent of Sion was a panel painted in oil of ‘St Anne etc.’, commissioned by the founder Maerten Reyngout and completed at his widow’s expense. Above the painting were carved images of Saint Martin, Saint James and Saint Barbara, which were put in place in 1510.⁸³ The altarpiece envisaged by Richard van der Capelle in 1482 was probably a structure of the same type.

Saint Catherine and Saint Barbara would therefore have appeared twice. The Magdalen may have been included in NG 1432 because Richard’s mother had been unmarried, the mistress of a priest. But the Magdalen, Catherine and Barbara were the ‘Drie Santinnen’, the Three Female Saints, who were widely venerated in Bruges.⁸⁴

If NG 1432 did indeed come from the chapel, it could have been painted at any time after 13 February 1482. The style is close to that of the Genoa altarpiece of 1506 and the Rouen altarpiece, finished in 1509. It is difficult to believe that NG 1432 was painted before the Rouen altarpiece, especially as the underdrawn Child corresponds more closely than the painted Child to the babies in the Genoa and Rouen altarpieces. The portrait of Richard does not seem to have been painted from life. Perhaps he was too old or infirm to sit for David; or perhaps his portrait was posthumous. The panel may have been commissioned for Richard’s chapel towards the end of his life, by his friends; or after his death, by his [page 156] executors. In either case, Bernardijn Salviati is likely to have had an important role in securing the commission for David.

In the mid‐sixteenth century the chapel was re‐endowed and refurbished by Juan de Matanca, who died in 1564 and who was buried in an elaborate tomb erected against the west wall.⁸⁵ NG 1432 may have been taken away then, to be replaced by an altarpiece of more fashionable structure and style, or in 1578, when the church was plundered and when Richard’s brass appears to have been removed. It is conceivable that the painting then found its way into the possession of the Giustiniani family.

NG 1432 may be seen as a smaller and simplified adaptation of the Rouen altarpiece. The figures, symmetrically arranged, are more clearly situated in space. Saint Catherine reaches forward towards the donor; the Magdalen reaches back to touch Saint Barbara’s book. The beautiful garden and townscape open up the background, whereas the Rouen composition was closed off by millefleur tapestries, now overpainted.⁸⁶ NG 1432 is a more measured, less spontaneous painting than the Rouen altarpiece.

General References

Friedländer , vol. VI, no. 216; Davies 1953, pp. 96–105; Davies 1968, pp. 44–5; Wyld, Roy and Smith 1979; Van Miegroet 1989, pp. 193–203, 293–4.

Notes