English or French(?)
NG4451 
Richard II presented to the Virgin and Child by Patron Saints (‘The Wilton Diptych’)

Dillian Gordon, with technical contributions by Rachel Billinge, Helen Howard and Rachel Beard, 2024

Extracted from:
The National Gallery; with entries by Emma Capron, Dillian Gordon, Sarah Herring, Mary McMahon, Letizia Treves and Francesca Whitlum‐Cooper; with technical contributions by Paul Ackroyd, Rachel Beard, Rachel Billinge, Lynne Harrison, Catherine Higgitt, Helen Howard, Larry Keith, Marta Melchiorre, Britta New, David Peggie, Marika Spring and Hayley Tomlinson, Online Entries (London: The National Gallery, 2024).

Egg tempera on oak, each panel 53 × 37 cm (including frame); painted surface 46 × 29 cm

Description

The Wilton Diptych takes its name from Wilton House, the seat of the earls of Pembroke, from where it was acquired in 1929 (see Provenance).

Interior, left wing (the Richard panel)

Richard II, King of England (born 1367, reigned 1377–99, died 1400) kneels on bare earth. He is presented by Saint John the Baptist holding a lamb and clothed in a camel‐skin with its head and a hoof still attached. Beside the Baptist are two kings: Saint Edward the Confessor (reigned 1042–66) holding a ring, and Saint Edmund, king and martyr (841–869/70), holding an arrow.

Interior, right wing (the Virgin panel)

The Virgin holds the infant Christ wrapped in a gold fabric; his halo is stippled with emblems of his Passion: three nails and a crown of thorns. The Virgin and Child stand in a meadow of plants and flowers, strewn with the heads of roses, violets and daisies, with a cluster of small mushrooms in the bottom right‐hand corner. They are surrounded by eleven angels, one of whom holds a white swallow‐tailed pennon (a type of flag) charged (that is, bearing) with a red cross.

Exterior of the left wing (the hart panel)

A white hart, gorged (that is, with a crown around its neck) and couchant/lodged (lying) on a bank of flowers and foliage.

Exterior of the right wing (the armorial panel)

The royal arms as used by Richard II, namely the arms of the kingdom of England (gules three lions, also known heraldically as leopards, passant guardant or) quartered with those of the kingdom of France (azure semé with fleurs‐de‐lis or),¹ and impaled with the fictive arms of Edward the Confessor (a cross patonce between five footless martlets). Above the shield are a helm, a cap of maintenance and a crowned lion statant guardant.² The damage (see Technical Notes) makes this panel difficult to read.

The paucity of comparable English or European works, added to the lack of any contemporary mention of the Wilton Diptych or relevant documentation, renders any argument regarding the diptych necessarily a matter of speculation.

A Note on the Text

Some of the information in this catalogue entry was originally published in the exhibition catalogue Making and Meaning: The Wilton Diptych, National Gallery, London 1993, revised and expanded in Gordon et al. , The Wilton Diptych, London 2015, with bibliography.³ This catalogue entry repeats some of the material of 2015, updated wherever possible. It should be noted that it is impossible to give an account of every publication which mentions the Wilton Diptych.

Technical Notes

Support

The diptych is painted on both sides of two wood panels, identified by microscopical examination as of oak (Quercus sp.). Dendrochronology shows that the wood comes from the eastern Baltic and the latest tree ring found was from 1375.⁴ Each panel measures approximately 53.3 × 37 cm. The panels are each made from two boards of wood, joined vertically: both comprise one wide board attached to a much narrower piece.⁵ The panels were originally about 2.5 cm thick and were carved into from both sides to make the shaped frame mouldings, leaving 6 mm of wood to provide flat surfaces to paint on. The frame mouldings around the interior paintings are deeper than those on the outer faces. The joins are simple butt‐joins glued in place, and so exceptionally well made that they are almost impossible to detect. Close examination of the X‐radiographs (fig. 1) has revealed the presence of two dowels inserted into the thickness of the wood across the join in the Richard/hart panel. At similar locations across the join of the Virgin/armorial panel are two patches.⁶ It seems probable that this panel also had dowels embedded in the thickness of the wood but that the depth of carving needed to make the inner frame mouldings exposed the dowels across the join, necessitating their removal and patching.⁷

The panels are connected with two hinges made of iron. These are original and have traces of a layer of gilding which would have made them less visually obtrusive than they are now. X‐radiographs show that on the opposite sides of the panels, level with the two hinges, are four tapered metal insertions (two in each panel), now concealed by the chalk ground and gilding applied over the frames. These are identical in size and shape to the flanges of the hinges. There could be several explanations for these insertions. Additional panels may have been planned, to be attached at either side, although this seems unlikely since the compositional coherence of the diptych implies that it is a complete object in its existing form. More probable is that these flanges were originally designed to have clasps but it was decided not to use them at an early stage, before the chalk ground was applied, since the chalk covers the sides continuously. There is no evidence of clasps having been applied to the exterior, and it seems likely that the diptych would have had a pouch of leather which held the panels together when closed.⁸

Preparation of the Support (Ground and Priming)

From the damaged area on the armorial panel (fig. 2) and from the X‐radiographs, it is possible to see that the surfaces of the wood were first covered with a web of fibres which, unusually, seem to be derived from parchment.⁹ The parchment fibres were laid directly on the wood and then covered with a layer of natural chalk in glue with which the fibres are now intermingled.¹⁰ No fibres were laid on the frames, where a layer of chalk was applied directly onto the wood. Cracks in the ground which are continuous from the main panel to the edges of the frame show that the chalk ground was laid down in a single phase of application.

Materials and Technique

The metal leaf used is gold, silver and part‐gold (oro mezzo, oro di metà or zwischgold). Identified pigments are natural ultramarine, azurite, indigo, copper green, green earth, red lake (kermes), vermilion, orpiment, lead‐tin yellow, yellow lake, red and yellow earth pigments, lead white, chalk, bone black and charcoal black.

The binding medium is egg tempera.

Underdrawing

Examination of the panels with infrared reflectography reveals extensive underdrawing (figs 3, 4, 5 and 6).¹¹ The whole composition was sketched in detailed outline, probably in a liquid medium. The drawing was followed fairly closely in the painting, but there are many small changes, for example in the hands of most of the figures, where usually the painted fingers are longer than were drawn. The Virgin’s face was made slightly wider, the Child’s right arm was slightly repositioned, and there was a reduction in scale of all the angels’ broomcod collars and their hart badges. A more significant change was made to the finger of the standing angel to the right of the Virgin (fig. 7) which first pointed to Richard’s head but was lowered to point more directly at his heart, focusing the gesture, and so the composition, more emphatically on him.

Infrared reflectography can give only a partial idea of exactly what was drawn onto the panels as some pigments, including brown and green earths and black, inhibit the penetration of the infrared radiation, while metal leaf blocks it completely. Little, if any, underdrawing can therefore be found on the exterior, as the armorial panel is almost completely covered with gold or silver and the hart panel has black pigment in underlayers both for the hart itself and the foliage on which it is couched. For the hart, the infrared images do, however, give some indication of how the paint layers were built up after the underdrawing, using broad washes of undermodelling to establish the form and define light and shade. Wide brushstrokes define the contour and tonality of the anatomy, for example on the chest and forequarters, and the modelling is graduated to give a three‐dimensional effect.

Gilding

In preparation for gilding, the borders between areas to be painted and those to be gilded were incised into the chalk ground to give a clear definition of the limits of the paint. The gold backgrounds and mouldings of the frame were water gilded over a layer of red bole in a proteinaceous adhesive, presumably animal glue.¹² The gold was carefully burnished.

An early change of plan is evident in the Richard panel, where the presence of bole under the forest shows that this area was intended to be gilded. It may be that the space between John the Baptist and the frame was thought to be too stark and the division between the two groups a disturbing void if it had been gilded, and so the space was instead filled with a depiction of distant woodland.

One of the distinctive features of the diptych is the variety of ways in which stippling, using a single dot punch, has been employed both for patterning and for modelling, creating subtle effects which exploit the optical qualities of the changing fall of light.

The gold background of each interior panel has a lightly incised square grid which formed a guide for the pattern carried out in the fine dot punch. A floral pattern on the Richard panel and a foliate pattern on the Virgin panel act as a counterpoint to the painted areas and contrast with the plain burnished gold in the haloes of the three saints in the left panel.¹³ Apart from the three plain haloes, the rays incised in the Virgin’s halo and those parts executed in mordant gilding (see below), almost every available surface of the gold has been densely tooled with the fine punch. In the case of the Child’s halo the punch has been used to create a crown of thorns and three nails (fig. 8), which replace the more customary cross. The crowns of Edmund and Edward have been minutely stippled with a fine punch in order for them to stand out against the plain surfaces of their unembellished haloes.

The handling of the punch where it is used for modelling shows the most astonishing display of virtuosity. This is particularly remarkable in the folds of the cloth wrapped around the Child (fig. 9): here the punch has been used most densely where the folds project, as on the Child’s knee, and the gold is left untooled in the recesses of the drapery. On the armorial panel, punching has been used to create the details of the muzzle and eyes of the lion’s face. The antlers of the large white hart have been entirely modelled with stippled punchwork, without recourse to any painted outline, relying solely on the fall of light to make them stand out against the plain burnished background. The stippling has been carried out in clusters, becoming denser from one edge to the other and denser in the tips (fig. 10).

The kings’ gold fabrics are executed in sgraffito, a method practised widely, for example, by fourteenth‐century Italian panel painters. Here it is on a particularly finely detailed scale. Richard’s robe was water gilded, then thinly painted with vermilion which was partially scraped away to expose the gold and create the design of broomcods (pods of the broom plant) encircling harts couched on beds of rosemary (fig. 11). The exposed gold was densely stippled with the fine punch, and finally more translucent paint was added to create the folds.

The same sgraffito method was employed for the pattern on Edmund’s robe, using natural ultramarine paint to contrast with the gold. Unlike on Richard’s robe, here in some places the blue was strengthened around the pattern. Paint for the vertical folds was then applied, passing directly over the pattern and filling some of the punchmarks. A small pink and white cloud was painted on the robe below each sun (see fig. 34, below).

As well as water gilding, some details were applied in mordant gilding which allows gold to be attached over paint, giving a low relief effect for example to the angels’ broomcod collars, the antlers of the angels’ hart badges (see fig. 24 and fig. 14, below) and the harts’ crowns and minute chains which hang from them. A sample from the mordant‐gilded fleurs‐de‐lis on the shield on the exterior examined in cross section shows a substantial mordant layer which is pigmented with lead white, chalk, some calcium sulphate, a little red and yellow earth and a few particles of bone black.¹⁴ New analyses of the mordant layer in this sample have confirmed that the binding medium is proteinaceous, most likely egg tempera, and does not contain a drying oil.¹⁵

One of the many optical contrasts exploited by the painter is that between burnished and unburnished gold. While the water‐gilding is burnished, mordant gilding cannot be. The fleurs‐de‐lis on the shield on the armorial panel (see fig. 56, below) have been applied with mordant gilding, their matt appearance contrasting with the gold cross and birds. Here the burnished gold is simply left exposed, with the blue apparently painted around the forms (rather than over the whole and then scraped away, as found in the gold fabrics of the robes).

The lions, now badly damaged, of the English Royal coat of arms were mordant gilded on a red lake background, itself applied over gold. The translucent red lake allowed the gold to shine through, supplying a further optical contrast.

The helm above the shield on the armorial panel was originally silver leaf, applied like the water gilding over a red bole and modelled with delicate punchmarks which produce a stippled effect. The surface of the silver leaf would originally have been covered with a glaze or varnish to prevent tarnishing and this was sometimes tinted with colours such as yellow, red or green. However, no trace of this glaze or varnish layer is now visible and the silver has tarnished to a very dark brownish‐black with only vestiges remaining, leaving the underlying red bole exposed.

A sample taken from the lower edge of the helm provided evidence for the use of part‐gold (oro mezzo, oro di metà or zwischgold), in which gold and silver are beaten together to form a single sheet. This material was sometimes used for its particular colouristic effects rather than as an economic alternative to gold. This is likely the case here, where subtle differences in reflective effects have been achieved across the panel by the juxtaposition and combination of a variety of metallic surfaces: gold leaf burnished, tooled and applied with a mordant, glazed silver leaf and part‐gold.

Painting Technique

Although the oak support and the preparatory chalk ground are highly characteristic of northern European panel painting, the painting technique and some of the pigments seem to be linked more closely to Italian painting practice of this period. The medium of all the painted areas has been identified as egg tempera.¹⁶ The optical effect of this is quite specific: it enables the painter to exploit the full purity and intrinsic colour of certain pigments, particularly that of natural ultramarine. This is clearly demonstrated in the draperies of the Virgin and angels where the intense colour of the pure pigment is visible in areas of shadow, and then combined with varying amounts of lead white to produce modelling effects. Blue was traditionally used for the Virgin’s robe but here ultramarine has also been employed for all eleven angels, as well as for Saint Edmund’s robe, and on the shield on the armorial panel.

In common with works from fourteenth‐century Italy, where the technique of egg tempera painting was widely practised, the flesh has been underpainted in a pale bluish‐green identified as containing the pigment green earth, combined with lead white.¹⁷ This green can be seen where the flesh paint is thin, for example around the eyes, and in damaged areas such as the face of the angel immediately to the right of the Virgin. The flesh tones have been built up in a series of hatched strokes dictated by the egg tempera technique and in this case the brushstrokes are of exceptional fineness and delicacy (see fig. 28, below). The painter has exploited the precision and fineness possible with egg tempera in order to detail, for example, highlights on faces, fingertips, eyelashes, locks of hair and the delicate feathers of the wings.

A number of distinct and complex techniques were used for the greens in the foliage in the hart panel in order to differentiate between the various plants. For grey‐green foliage in the foreground, a mixture of natural orpiment and indigo has been applied over charcoal black underpaint, with a final highlight principally of orpiment. By contrast, the solid dull green of the fern stalks (fig. 12) was made by combining azurite and lead‐tin yellow.¹⁸ Elsewhere, for the rosemary, azurite was combined with lead white and a little chalk. The chalk may have been the substrate for a yellow lake pigment now faded (fig. 13): the leaves now appear rather blue in colour, suggesting that the yellow component of the paint layer has faded. The stems of the irises were painted in a quite different technique, using a thin translucent layer of deep blue‐green indigo. The effect of the latter is that of a green glaze, enhanced by light reflection from the gilding beneath where the stems reach above the horizon. The yellow glaze of the iris petals has mostly flaked or faded, leaving only a silhouette of the flowers against the gold leaf.

In some places translucent paint layers were also used to enhance the modelling effects on draperies or laid over the gold to simulate jewels. Unfortunately, some of the jewel‐like effects of final translucent paint layers are no longer as striking as they once were: for example, the crowns had jewels of different colours, some of which are now missing or have darkened, and in each of the angels’ collars one of the two pendant pods has a green glaze, now visible only under magnification (see fig. 24, below). Final translucent paint layers also once modelled Richard’s gown, such as the glazed lines of red suggesting folds fanning out from the wrist, and yellow‐green lake painted over the fringes of the collar and sleeve. Only traces of these final paint layers survive and consequently the gown now appears flatter than was originally intended. The remnants of a deep‐red glaze can however still be seen on the part of his robe covering his breast.

A red glaze layer is also present on the shield on the armorial panel, and analysis of the red lake pigment employed here shows that it probably contains the dyestuff extracted from kermes (Kermes vermilio Planchon, 1864).¹⁹ Kermes lake was more frequently used in the fifteenth century but has not been identified in any painted work before the last quarter of the fourteenth century. One of the earliest known uses of kermes lake is in a sample taken from the frame of the tester over the tomb of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral (died 1376),²⁰ and it has also been identified in the portrait of Richard II in Westminster Abbey dated to the 1390s (fig. 26, below), where it was used in a mixture with a small amount of madder as a glaze over the vermilion of the king’s robe.²¹

The surface of the painting exhibits remarkable three‐dimensional effects in paint on a minute scale. As well as the raised mordant gilding discussed earlier, thickly applied tiny touches of lead white are skilfully used to create such effects. The hart motifs on the badges are painted in grey and then modelled with a thick lead white enabling the painter to define the anatomy against a green background. The white was then finely outlined in brown or black enhancing the volumetric effect (fig. 14). Raised globular touches of lead white are also used to achieve the illusion of pearls decorating the crowns, Edmund’s brooch, Richard’s broomcod collar and the antlers of Richard’s hart jewel (fig. 15).

The raised lead white pigment used to paint Richard’s white hart brooch (see fig. 18, below) clearly imitates white enamel over gold (émail en ronde bosse), primarily a French metalwork technique,²² although it is thought some of this type of jewellery may also have been made in English workshops.²³ Certain of the pigment mixtures used in the diptych are rather complex, but are consistent from one panel to another, confirming that the diptych was probably created in a single phase of painting, likely involving the collaboration of highly skilled craftsmen, such as a carpenter or gilder, working under a master painter. For example, small touches of paint representing grey‐green foliage in the foregrounds of both the Virgin panel and the hart panel comprise the same layer structure of charcoal black underpaint followed by a mixture of natural orpiment and indigo, with a final highlight principally of orpiment. Similarly, the greyish‐white of the cap of maintenance has been painted in an identical layer structure to the white body of the hart, with white applied over a grey undermodelling.

As mentioned above, the underdrawing was followed carefully during painting but there is one significant area that shows an unusual approach during the preparatory phases. Around the profile of Richard, infrared reflectography shows an area of the camel‐skin worn by the Baptist that seems to have been treated differently to the rest (see fig. 29, below). Under magnification it could be seen that below the brown paint of the camel‐skin there is a layer of green earth and white paint, similar to the underlayers for flesh, which suggests that an over‐large area was prepared for the portrait head and left until the artist had a model to work from.

Conservation History

The diptych was cleaned and restored in 1991–2, at which point non‐original gilding and inscribed brass plates were removed from the frame mouldings.²⁴ There is no record of any work between the painting’s acquisition in 1929 and 1991, apart from some consolidation of loose ground and paint.

Condition of the Support and Painting

The condition of the wood panels is excellent, with just one short split, now repaired, extending down from the top edge through the full thickness of the frame of the Richard/hart panel.

The water gilding, particularly on the inner panels, is in extremely good condition. On the outer edges of the frames the gilding is worn where the frame was handled when the diptych was opened and closed.

Like the gilding, the paint on the inner faces of the panels is in excellent condition (but see below) with just a few small scratches and some flaking around the edges of figures where paint overlaps gold, and a larger area of flaking in the trees beside the Baptist. There has also been some damage across Saint Edmund’s upper body. The exterior has suffered more accidental damage, with the armorial panel more severely affected. A large area beside the silver helm has loss of paint and ground, exposing wood and parchment fibres. The gold in the top right corner has been lost and regilded, the silver degraded to black and worn to expose the bole, and those quarters of the shield that should have been red with the lions of the English coat of arms have lost most of the painted design.

The original appearance of the diptych has however been affected by changes that have taken place in some of the pigments, most seriously in the reds. For example, several areas containing red lake pigments have faded. This applies particularly to Saint Edward’s robe where lines of a brownish‐red glaze survive in the shadows and folds, in both outer and inner garments (fig. 16). The robes now appear merely off‐white, but originally must have been warmer pinkish colours which have faded almost entirely. The pink roses in the angels’ chaplets would originally have been more strongly coloured, emphasising the contrast between alternating red and white flowers. Yellow lake pigments have faded, and, where they are used in mixed green, this affects the present colour of the paint layer resulting in a blueish appearance. In addition to the fading of yellow lakes, orpiment has lost colour in the upper portions of the paint stratigraphy, changing to form white arsenic trioxide.

The vermilion paint on Richard’s robe where not protected by a red lake layer, and on the armorial panel, has darkened in patches at its surface.²⁵ The ultramarine, particularly in dark areas, shows some signs of deterioration, making the surface look lighter than originally intended.

Ownership, the Heraldry and its Significance for the Date

The diptych was almost certainly commissioned by Richard II for his personal use, as signalled by the heraldic devices on the exterior, and this is now generally accepted (although see also below).

Uppermost when the diptych is closed is the white hart, gorged (with a crown around its neck) and chained, signalling ownership:²⁶ the white hart was one of Richard’s badges,²⁷ which he may have adopted partly because of the implicit pun on his own name – most evident in its spelling in French, ‘Richart’.²⁸ He first publicly distributed the white hart with a crown and gold chain as a badge at a tournament in Smithfield in 1390.²⁹ The hart lies among various flowers and foliage which include rosemary and ferns (see fig. 12 and fig. 13, above), both of which were badges of Richard’s first wife, Anne of Bohemia (died 7 June 1394).³⁰ It is possible that some of the flowers are mourons (pimpernels), used as a badge by his second wife, Isabelle (1389–1409), and rosemary is also associated with her (see below).³¹ The irises above the horizon, now barely visible (see Painting Technique), similarly refer to Isabelle.³²

The shield on the armorial panel is also personal to Richard since it shows the royal arms of England impaled with the fictive arms of Edward the Confessor, which Richard II used from around 1395.³³ It has been said that it was after the death in 1394 of his first wife, Anne, that Richard turned his devotion to the Confessor, having the royal arms impaled with the saint’s arms in the way a husband impaled his arms with those of his wife.³⁴

Richard (fig. 17) wears a reddish‐orange and gold houppelande (long‐sleeved gown) with gold fringes, lined with white fur which is visible along the sleeves and hem. The textile is patterned with harts, gorged and chained, lying among sprigs of rosemary and encircled by pairs of broomcods (pods of the broom plant) (see fig. 11, above) interspersed with eagles.³⁵ Richard’s gown would originally have appeared more sumptuous and three‐dimensional, since the folds of drapery were defined with glazes which are now barely visible (see Painting Technique). No such garment is documented in Richard’s wardrobe.³⁶ His gown has been likened to the robes designed by Thomas Lytlington (for whom see below), worn by twenty ladies at a tournament in January 1396 (modern 1397): the robes were made of red tartaryn (a type of silk) stamped with harts of silver gorged with gold crowns and with gold chains, lying among broom plants.³⁷

At his breast the king wears a jewel of a white hart (fig. 18) gorged and chained, on a green background, with pearls decorating its antlers. The hart is intended to appear as if made of émail en ronde bosse (opaque white enamel fused over gold), and must have looked something like the Dunstable Swan Jewel in the British Museum, London (fig. 19).³⁸

The white hart jewel may well derive from an actual brooch, since it closely resembles one given to Richard by his second wife, Isabelle, which was itemised in the 1398/9 inventory of Richard’s treasure as a hart of gold lying on a green terrace, with almost the same number of pearls in its antlers as the 13 on Richard’s brooch: Item, un cerf d’or gisant sur un vert terrage de esmeraudez, ove iiij balaces, iiij saphirs, xviij perlez entour le terrage et sur lez corns xiiij perlez, du donn la roigne, pois’ de Troie x unc’ et vaut outre C li., dont la somme, Cxiij li. vj s. viij d. (Item, a hart of gold lying on a green terrace of emeralds, with 4 balas rubies, 4 sapphires, 18 pearls around the terrace, and on the antlers 14 pearls, given by the queen, Troy weight 10 ounces, additional value £100, total £113 6s. 8d.)³⁹ Around his neck Richard wears a collar formed of pairs of broomcods linked by white flowers in raised lead white paint with centres of black raised pigment (fig. 20). The collar is fastened with a square brooch decorated with pearls and with a blue stone at the centre from which hang two more broomcods. The pods are stippled or pounced (poinçonnés) with clusters of rosettes intended to represent seeds.

It used to be thought, presumably due to Richard’s boyish appearance, that the diptych dated from early in his reign.⁴⁰ However, the portrait of Richard (see fig. 28 and fig. 29, below) was inserted at a relatively late stage of painting (see Painting Technique and below) and the impaling of the royal arms with those of Edward the Confessor suggests a date for the diptych closer to or after 1395 (see above). This is substantiated by the device of the broomcod collar which suggests a date from 1395 or 1396, probably 1397 or 1398, connected with Richard’s marriage in 1396 to Isabelle, the eldest surviving daughter of the French king, Charles VI.⁴¹ The broomcod (French cosse de genêt) was from 1387 the emblem or device of Charles VI (fig. 21): a rare surviving gold broomcod jewel with pearls as the seeds (Barcelona, Capitol de la Catedral, fig. 22) is thought to have been given by Charles VI to John I of Aragon around 1389.⁴²

The first documented example of Richard’s combining his own livery with that of the French king in this way is on 27 October 1396, the first day of their four‐day meeting at Ardres (near Calais) to conclude the truce in the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, when Charles formally handed Isabelle over to Richard.⁴³ Both kings wore a red velvet gown and a collar of the livery of the French king (that is, a broomcod collar), and a white hart on the arm, looking much as Richard does in the Wilton Diptych, although both kings also wore (black?) hats hung with pearls.⁴⁴ Among the many gifts that Charles gave Richard was a gold collar of broomcods identical to one he had commissioned for himself, although from the description of that collar it is clear that it was not the same as the one worn by Richard in the Wilton Diptych.⁴⁵

Richard was entitled to wear the broomcod as his own livery by virtue of his marriage to Isabelle.⁴⁶ Although the English kings did not use the surname Plantagenet during the fourteenth century, some authors are of the view that Richard may have adopted the broomcod device because of the implicit pun in French (plant à genêt).⁴⁷ Laurent Hablot sees it primarily as a sign of the ‘entente cordiale’ between England and France in 1396.⁴⁸ Livery collars were often worn as a sign of friendship and allegiance.⁴⁹ However, although personal relations between Richard and Charles were mutually friendly, as evidenced by their behaviour towards each other at Ardres, it should also be noted that, following the example of Edward III, Richard styled himself as ‘by the grace of God King of England and King of France’, as did subsequent English kings.⁵⁰ Henry IV, who had no immediate connection to the French royal family, wore the livery of the kings of France (a broomcod collar) in the procession on the eve of his coronation in 1399, and English kings continued to commission works with the broomcod device.⁵¹ Whether this was to perpetuate their claim to the French throne, or to legitimise their succession to the English throne, is a moot point.

Shelagh Mitchell suggested that the collar in the Wilton Diptych may be the one described as being the livery of the king of France which was made by the goldsmith Drew Barantyn (died 1415), for which he was paid £40 on 11 June 1398.⁵² It was argued by Dillian Gordon that the flowers linking the pods in Richard’s collar in the diptych may represent mourons, the badge of Isabelle (and of her mother):⁵³ similar flowers occur in collars worn by Charles VI; see for example fig. 23, which has a jewel like that in Barcelona (see fig. 22, above), and some have pendant broomcods (for example, fig. 21, above, and Geneva, Bibliothèque publique et universitaire MS fr. 165, f. 7).⁵⁴

In the diptych the angels wear badges of white harts, gorged and chained, which are simpler than the one worn by the king, but also on a green background, and simpler broomcod collars with pendant pods (fig. 24 and fig. 14, above); the seeds are depicted using a thick mordant for the gilding under the green glaze. From the antlers visible at the shoulder of the foremost kneeling angel it is clear that the harts were intended to appear three‐dimensional.

The numerous examples of objects combining the broomcod and white hart in the context of Richard’s court probably date from 1396 onwards.⁵⁵

The Portrait of Richard

Richard II (fig. 25) was said to be of great beauty: ‘the fairest of men [‘pulcherrimus’], like a second Absalom’; the poet John Gower, writing at the beginning of his reign, called him ‘the most beautiful of kings’ and ‘the flower of boys’.⁵⁶ In the diptych the profile portrait shows him as a youth with reddish‐golden wavy hair, blue eyes, a long nose and small chin. As discussed above, the heraldry indicates that the painting dates from after 1395 or 1396, probably around 1397–8, by which time Richard was at least 30 years old. It has been argued that by then he was bearded, possibly soon after 1386 and certainly from at least 1388–9, as depicted in various manuscripts⁵⁷ (which may or may not be reliable), as well as in the portrait of Richard II Enthroned (fig. 26) now in Westminster Abbey, dating possibly from around 1395, where he is also shown comparatively young and appears to have a small forked beard.⁵⁸ His appearance at the likely date for the diptych is known from the double tomb in Westminster Abbey, showing Richard with Anne of Bohemia, since the contract of 24 April 1395 with the coppersmiths specifies that the king is to be portrayed according to a ‘patron’ (pattern) in the likeness of the king, and this particular pattern must have been personally approved by Richard.⁵⁹ The tomb effigy (fig. 7) is of a mature man, with a forked beard and a moustache, very different from the fresh‐faced beardless boy in the diptych, although still with the wavy hair, distinctively long sharp nose and arched brow.⁶⁰

Different solutions have been proposed to explain this anomaly. It has been argued that the idealisation was in order to minimise the difference in age between Richard and his child bride, Isabelle, who was not quite seven years old when they married.⁶¹ Rulers were often represented younger than they were,⁶² and it has similarly been suggested that the purpose was to flatter the king.⁶³ Several writers have proposed that the intention was to show Richard as he looked when he was crowned, in his eleventh year.⁶⁴

It was discovered in 1993 that an area was reserved for Richard’s hair and profile and that they were inserted at a relatively late stage in the execution of the painting (fig. 28 and fig. 29, and see Painting Technique).⁶⁵ Since the portrait seems not to have been true to the king’s appearance at the time, it is possible that the artist was waiting to be given a pattern, in this instance one showing the king as a young boy, possibly as he looked when he acceded to the throne and, more importantly, when he was crowned.

Throughout his life Richard was overtly conscious of his extreme youth at his accession.⁶⁶ He referred to it at the opening of the Revenge Parliament of 1397 when he declared that he had restored the crown of his youth that had been denied him by the Appellants in the Merciless Parliament of 1388.⁶⁷ In his will, drawn up on 16 April 1399, he again referred to his youth when he was crowned.⁶⁸ Thus the perhaps deliberate decision to show Richard in the Wilton Diptych as he looked at his coronation suggests one of the central preoccupations of the diptych, namely his own kingship.

The crown Richard is wearing in the diptych seems to be deliberately old‐fashioned. It is very different from the type of crown worn by Richard in, for example, the portrait in the stained glass window of about 1393 in Winchester Cathedral,⁶⁹ or in the Westminster Abbey portrait of about 1395 (fig. 26, above). Both the latter have high fleurons, as was the fashion towards the late fourteenth century, for example in the crown thought to have belonged to Anne of Bohemia (fig. 30).⁷⁰ Thus the crown in the diptych may be intended to refer to his actual coronation as opposed to simply denoting kingship.⁷¹ A further reference to Richard’s coronation may be in the Christ Child’s gold clothing (see below).

The Resemblance of the Composition to the Adoration of the Magi

The composition of the Wilton Diptych, with one king kneeling before the Virgin and Child while two kings stand behind, has inevitably been associated with the iconography of the Adoration of the Magi.⁷²

The feast of the Epiphany or Adoration of the Magi had a special place in the liturgical life of all European medieval royal courts, and it was not uncommon for a royal or aristocratic patron to be identified with one of the Magi.⁷³ Matthew Brown sees Richard II as continuing the association of the Plantagenets with the ‘notion of a Magi‐styled sacral kingship’ promoted by Edward III in the wall paintings of St Stephen’s chapel at Westminster.⁷⁴ Richard’s own preoccupation with the Epiphany is suggested by the fact that in about 1395 he paid for the enlarging of the crown of one of the kings in the Adoration of the Magi in that chapel.⁷⁵ The significance of the Epiphany for Richard was almost certainly reinforced not only by the fact that his birthday was on 6 January, the feast of the Epiphany, but also by the fact that, according to a contemporary chronicle, when he was born in Bordeaux three kings were present – the kings of Spain, Navarre and Portugal – who brought him gifts in the manner of the three Magi.⁷⁶

Saints John the Baptist, Edward the Confessor and Edmund and their Significance

Saint John the Baptist

John the Baptist (fig. 31) is here as Richard’s patron saint and intercessor. Just as Mary carries the Christ Child in her arms, so John the Baptist carries the Lamb of God, symbol of Christ himself. When Saint John baptised Christ, he described him as ‘the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world’ (John 1: 29).

There are numerous examples of Richard’s devotion to the Baptist.⁷⁷ It is probably to be explained by his birthdate of 6 January, since according to popular devotional texts such as the Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea) written in the thirteenth century by the Dominican friar Jacopo da Voragine and the Meditations on the Life of Christ (Meditationes Vitae Christi) written in the fourteenth century, four miracles took place on 6 January, of which the Epiphany and the Baptism of Christ were two.⁷⁸ The presence of John the Baptist has also been linked to Richard’s accession on 22 June, just before the 24 June, the feast of John the Baptist.⁷⁹

Richard invoked John the Baptist in the epitaph on his tomb in Westminster Abbey: ‘… O Clemens Christe – cui devotus fuit iste, Votis Baptiste salves quem pretulit iste …’ (‘O merciful Christ – to whom he [Richard] was devoted, may you save him through the prayers of the Baptist whom he [Richard] venerated [literally “preferred”]’).⁸⁰ His will also begins by invoking the Trinity, and then the Virgin, followed by Saint John the Baptist and Edward the Confessor, and the whole court of heaven.⁸¹

Saint Edward the Confessor

Edward the Confessor (fig. 32), the son of Ethelred the Unready, was king of England from 1042 to 1066 (canonised in 1161), and died on 5 January (the eve of Richard’s birthdate). In the diptych, Edward is wearing an ermine‐lined cloak which was originally pink over a darker red gown (see Painting Technique and fig. 16, above), and a blue robe beneath, just visible at the wrists; he holds a ring with a blue stone. The ring refers to the legend in which Edward gave a ring to a poor pilgrim who was revealed to be Saint John the Evangelist.⁸² It may also represent the ring said to have belonged to Edward the Confessor, which was described in an inventory of Westminster Abbey taken in 1388 as adorned with one sapphire and eight red stones, in the custody of the abbot.⁸³

Edward’s cult, which had been fostered by Henry III (died 1272),⁸⁴ was taken up with fervour by Richard. It was manifested in his patronage of Westminster Abbey, which housed Edward’s shrine, and in his impaling of the royal arms with those of the Confessor (see above).⁸⁵

Katherine Lewis has explored Richard’s devotion to Edward as that of a matter of political expediency, related to the saint’s status as a virgin and childless king (see also below).⁸⁶ It has been argued that Richard’s devotion to the cult of Saint Edward was not only on account of the saint’s relevance to the coronation, but also of his being one of Richard’s forebears – demonstrating dynastic legitimacy – and a patron saint of England; Richard’s devotion signified his espousal of the cause of peace, and Jonathan Good has suggested that Richard’s idea of peace meant not only peace with France but also, within his own kingdom, obtaining submission to royal authority.⁸⁷

Saint Edmund, King and Martyr

Edmund (died 869) (fig. 33), the last ruler of East Anglia, was martyred when defeated by the Danes for refusing to deny the Christian faith. He is traditionally said to have been killed with arrows. He was buried in Norfolk, and around 915 his body was transferred to the Benedictine monastery later called Bury St Edmunds. In 1095 his body was moved again to a new church and in 1198 re‐enshrined. The shrine became a focus for pilgrims and a cult grew up around it.⁸⁸ Richard visited Edmund’s shrine at Bury St Edmunds in 1383.⁸⁹

Edmund is wearing a green ermine‐lined cloak over a blue and gold houppelande patterned with paired birds, and under that a blue‐sleeved robe, and red hose. The birds in the pattern were identified by John Harvey as demoiselle cranes (Anthropoides virgo/Grus virgo) in reference to the Virgin.⁹⁰ Lisa Monnas has suggested that the pattern with fanning rays of the birds’ tails is reminiscent of Lucchese silks, and that it was probably based on an actual fabric by the weaver from Lucca documented in Richard’s employ.⁹¹ The birds are linked not by simple rings as commonly found in such fabrics, but by crowns. Not only do these reinforce the theme of kingship, but they may also refer to Saint Edmund’s fictive arms of triple crowns.⁹²

It was recognised only in 2015 that each crown is linked by a vertical gold line to a sun above a tiny pink cloud (fig. 34). The sun rising from clouds was another of Richard’s badges.⁹³ The gold suns rendered in sgraffito and the clouds in paint correspond with descriptions of several of Richard’s garments ordered between 1383 and 1386 in which suns embroidered with Cyprus gold were emerging from clouds embroidered with Cyprus silver and silk.⁹⁴ These motifs therefore clearly identify Saint Edmund with King Richard.⁹⁵

From the reign of Henry III onward, saints Edward, Edmund and George were associated with royal and popular devotion.⁹⁶ Both Edward the Confessor and Edmund were considered as patron saints of England, and particularly patron saints of English kings, until eventually superseded nationally by Saint George.⁹⁷ Richard’s devotion to Edward and Edmund was presumably well known, since in 1398 Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, sent him a New Year’s gift (étrenne) of a gold image of Saint Edward the Confessor, while Charles VI gave him a matching image of Saint Edmund.⁹⁸ Richard gave Westminster Abbey three vexilla depicting Saint Edward, Saint Edmund and a third with the arms of the Holy Roman Emperor.⁹⁹ Richard also gave to the Abbey a chasuble with orphreys depicting the same saints, with the Virgin, as in the diptych,¹⁰⁰ and Francis Wormald pointed out in 1954 that the three saints in the diptych are in the same order as their chapels in Westminster Abbey.¹⁰¹

Lewis sees the inclusion of the three saints, who were by the late fourteenth century explicitly understood and described as virgins, as publicly vindicating the childlessness of Richard’s sacred kingship.¹⁰² However, most writers see the saints as symbolising Richard’s right to the throne.¹⁰³ Sumner Ferris interpreted the three saints as portraits of Richard’s ancestors, including the Baptist as a portrait of the Black Prince, representing the progress of Richard towards the throne culminating in his accession (in his eleventh year, hence eleven angels), and symbolised by four steps in the rocks on the right edge of the Richard panel; he saw the diptych as a visual representation of the principles of an absolutist theory of monarchy.¹⁰⁴ John Theilmann sees the diptych as a ‘sacerdotal image of kingship’, with Richard shown as one of a line of saintly monarchs as part of an attempt at establishing his political legitimacy.¹⁰⁵

Similarly it was argued by Alfred Wyon that Henry IV included saints Edward the Confessor and Edmund in his new seal in 1408 in order to demonstrate his own right to the throne.¹⁰⁶

Although the royal saints stand on the earth, presenting Richard, the blue of Edmund’s gown and the blue of the robes visible at the wrist beneath the gowns of both Edmund and Edward identifies them with the Virgin and angels dressed in blue in heaven in the adjoining panel.¹⁰⁷

The Virgin and Child

The Virgin Mary (fig. 35) stands with her Child in a meadow denoting heaven, among strewn flowers, the majority of which are roses and violets (fig. 36 and fig. 37), symbols of the Virgin.¹⁰⁸ The angels wear Richard’s livery badges as his supporters,¹⁰⁹ but their garments are of blue like those of the Virgin. They have chaplets of roses in their hair (fig. 38), and their folded arms are courtly gestures of reverence and of humility,¹¹⁰ thus also demonstrating their loyalty to the Virgin.

Mary wears her traditional blue gown and cloak, but the clothing of the half‐naked Child (fig. 39 and fig. 9, above) is unusual: such a pure gold textile almost certainly did not exist, but has a symbolic function underlining both the majesty and the divinity of Christ.¹¹¹ Furthermore, the use of a gold cloth for the King of Heaven may also refer to part of the ritual of Richard’s coronation, when he was stripped of his clothing ‘… and a golden covering [‘pannus aureus’] was brought by the earls under which the king concealed himself while he received the sacrament of the anointing’.¹¹²

The three nails and crown of thorns (fig. 40 and fig. 8, above) stippled within Christ’s halo refer to Christ’s Passion,¹¹³ which is also referenced by the white pennon charged with a red cross, the banner of the Resurrection (see below), while the Virgin displays the sole of the Child’s foot which at the Crucifixion will be pierced by a nail.¹¹⁴

The Child’s gesture is ambiguous. Although it clearly involves blessing the king, it is unclear whether he is also about to grasp the staff of the pennon, possibly in order to return it to Richard (see The Commissioning of the Diptych and the Relationship between the Two Panels, below), indicated by the fact that four of the angels gesture towards the king. Eleanor Scheifele sees Christ’s foot as presented to Richard to be ceremonially kissed in feudal fashion.¹¹⁵ Several writers have noted the identification of Richard with Christ.¹¹⁶

Whether the pose of the Virgin in the diptych is intended to evoke a particular image is an open question. Alfred Thomas sees the resemblance to the type of Bohemian sculpture exemplified by the so‐called Krumlov Madonna (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) as alluding to Anne of Bohemia (see below and fig. 53).¹¹⁷ Gervase Rosser suggested that the Wilton Diptych might be a votive painting to a miraculous statue of the Virgin (either in St Stephen’s College or in Westminster Abbey).¹¹⁸ A jewelled gold statue of the Virgin bequeathed by Henry III to his son was kept in the king’s private oratory of St Mary le Pew (sometimes called Our Lady of Pity) next to St Stephen’s chapel (not to be confused with the chapel of St Mary de la Pew/Our Lady of the Pew in Westminster Abbey). According to Elizabeth Biggs the cult image of the Virgin is first referred to in 1356 when pilgrims were given permission to enter the oratory via Westminster Hall to pray before it.¹¹⁹ It is not known whether it was among the jewellery and ornaments stolen from the chapel in 1393 (and thus replaced or returned, since a statue there was destroyed by fire in 1452).¹²⁰

Another possibility is that the Virgin in the Wilton Diptych was based on a (probably French) statue of the Virgin and Child itemised in Richard’s treasure in 1398/9, since it was surrounded by the same number of angels as in the diptych: Item, j image de Nostre Dame et son fitz et iij branches d’or contenant Cvj perles et la dit image contient iiij balays et entour la dit image xj angels et la pee de la dit image d’argent dorrez ove tourrettz enbattellez, pois’ x li. iij unc’,It j li. d’or par estimacion, et vaut outre xx I dont la somme, lj li. vijs. vjd. (Item, an image of Our Lady and her son and 3 gold branches bearing 106 pearls and the said image contains 4 balas rubies and around the said image [are] 11 angels, and the foot of the said image [is] silver gilt with turrets with battlements, weight 10 lbs, 3 ounces, of which 1 lb estimated of gold, and worth an additional £20, total £51 7s. 6d.)¹²¹ The reverse is of course also possible – that the jewel was based on the Wilton Diptych – although this seems unlikely.

The Eleven Angels

Numerous theories have been proposed as to why there are eleven angels in the Wilton Diptych. One possible reason is the statue of the Virgin itemised in Richard’s treasure in 1398/9, mentioned above. Before the discovery of the inventory of the treasure, those writers who considered that Richard is portrayed at the age when he became king tended to be those who considered the eleven angels to refer to the fact that Richard was in his eleventh year when he acceded to the throne.¹²² Other suggestions include, for example, that of Eleanor Scheifele who has pointed out that in 1397 Richard elevated eleven nobles.¹²³ It has also been suggested that the angels refer to the eleven disciples after Christ’s Resurrection.¹²⁴ Germ suggests that the number refers to Joseph’s dream that the sun, the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to him (Genesis 37: 9), that medieval exegesis saw the sun as Christ, the moon as the Virgin, the stars as the apostles (minus Judas), and Joseph as the twelfth star, and that by analogy Richard is here the twelfth star.¹²⁵

The Swallow‐Tailed Pennon and the Orb

One of the angels holds a swallow‐tailed white pennon charged with a red cross (fig. 41). It was argued by Gordon that the pennon has a dual function and that it represents both the banner of Christ and of Saint George, and this is accepted by some writers.¹²⁶

The pennon in the diptych would have been recognised as referring to Christ’s Passion, since such a flag is often carried by Christ in scenes of the Resurrection (see, for example, fig. 42). This is reinforced by the symbols of Christ’s Passion stippled within his halo and the display of the sole of Christ’s foot (see above). Resurrection banners carried by Christ are often surmounted by a cross, and in fact the top of the pennon in the Wilton Diptych was originally stippled with a cross as part of the initial stages of execution.

However, in 1991, during cleaning of the diptych, it was discovered that painted over the cross is a small orb (fig. 43 and fig. 44), 1 cm in diameter, depicting a green landscape on which stands a white castle with two turrets and black windows, and trees on the horizon; below is a sea of silver leaf with a boat in full sail, and above is blue sky. Before the silver leaf became tarnished this would originally have been more visible than it is today.

It was argued by Gordon on the basis of a lost altarpiece in Rome that the landscape depicts an island, symbolising England as the Dowry of the Virgin.¹²⁷ The concept of England as the Virgin’s dowry was current from at least 1362 when a Franciscan friar, John Lathbury (died 1362), not only described England in this way, but also linked that concept with the well‐known pun on Angles and angels:
Dicitur enim vulgariter quod terra
Anglie est dos Marie, unde
Anglici quasi angelici
(It is even commonly said that the land
of England is Mary’s dowry, whence
Angles [are] as angels).¹²⁸ In this context the red‐haired angels are presumably meant to be English.¹²⁹

Most scholars see the pennon as that of Saint George. Before discovery of the painting within the orb, Ferris interpreted the pennon as that of the saint, associated with the Order of the Garter and the monarchs of England, and the orb as representing sovereignty; in his view Richard is about to receive the pennon as a symbol of his kingdom, presented by God and the Virgin as her dowry.¹³⁰ In his study of the cult of Saint George in medieval England and the importance of that saint for the English kings, Jonathan Good cites a contemporary description of the banner of Saint George during the reign of Richard II as being ‘the king’s banner’, connected with the authority of the monarch, and although Good notes that the banner was normally a square standard, and that a forked banner surmounted by a cross is normally associated with Christ of the Resurrection (see above), he concludes that in the case of the Wilton Diptych the presence of the orb representing the island of Britain makes the pennon a symbol of royal authority.¹³¹

However, the interpretation of the orb as a symbol of England has been disputed. Lukas Madersbacher sees it as the type of orb held by Christ, symbolising the world, which was relatively commonly depicted during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.¹³² For example, the sinopia for the wall paintings by Simone Martini (died 1344) in Notre Dame des Doms, Avignon, shows the blessing Christ holding an orb with sea, land and sky, linked in this case to the inscription ‘EGO SUM LUX MUNDI’ (‘I am the light of the world’).¹³³ Closer to home, the Westminster Retable, completed probably by 1269 for the high altar of Westminster Abbey, shows the standing Christ holding an orb with a boat on the sea, landscape with trees and animals, and sky with birds and clouds (fig. 45 and fig. 46).¹³⁴ In the case of the Wilton Diptych Madersbacher sees the pennon and orb as symbolising Christ’s Resurrection and the triumph of the regnum Christi (the reign of Christ), the boat as symbolising Christianity on this earth, and the castle as the refuge offered by Christ, all underlined by the arma Christi (the crown of thorns and nails in Christ’s halo).¹³⁵ However, such an interpretation seems not to take account of the secular and political context, suggested by the presence of saints Edward the Confessor and Edmund, and their possible significance (for which see above).

In Shakespeare’s Richard II (II. 1. 45–6), John of Gaunt, in a famous speech, describes England as ‘this little world … set in a silver sea’.¹³⁶ Whether this is a coincidence or not is impossible to tell, but it is close to the image of the little world in the orb at the top of the pennon.¹³⁷

How and Where the Wilton Diptych was Used

Richard led an extremely peripatetic existence,¹³⁸ and the diptych was clearly designed to be portable. The relatively good condition of the outer panel with the white hart indicates that for much of the time the diptych must have been kept in a case, presumably one of cuir bouilli (boiled leather), probably decorated with Richard’s personal arms.¹³⁹ As noted by Monnas, the diptych could have been used in any one of Richard’s various palaces, such as those at Sheen, King’s Langley and Eltham, all of which would have been equipped with private oratories (‘closets’) and domestic chapels for the king and queen; some of these chapels had an oratory set high into the wall, overlooking the main chapel.¹⁴⁰ Pamela Tudor‐Craig argued that all the palace chapels were already furnished with altarpieces by the time the diptych was painted and that it was specifically commissioned to take to Ireland.¹⁴¹

The centre of Richard’s kingdom was Westminster.¹⁴² Within the palace complex of Westminster, St Stephen’s College played a crucial role. Elizabeth Biggs noted that the king attended services in the chapel there on feast days, and on other days heard Mass in the adjoining private oratory of St Mary le Pew with his personal chaplain.¹⁴³ Martin Conway argued that the diptych was for use specifically in this chapel.¹⁴⁴ The oratory of St Mary le Pew is not to be confused with the chapel of St Mary de la Pew (also known as Our Lady of the Pew) within Westminster Abbey (see above), which is another possible temporary location for Richard’s devotions: in this chapel a white hart is painted on the altar wall, and the royal arms and those of Edward the Confessor are placed at the entrance;¹⁴⁵ the chapel had a squint through which Richard could have observed services taking place in the adjacent chapel of Saint John the Baptist.¹⁴⁶

The Commissioning of the Diptych and the Relationship between the Two Panels

Some scholars have argued that the diptych was commissioned by someone other than Richard II himself. Some thought it to be a memorial picture commissioned after his death,¹⁴⁷ and that its patron might, for example, have been Henry V, who had Richard’s body transferred from King’s Langley to Westminster Abbey in 1413.¹⁴⁸ This is based on an interpretation of the imagery as representing Richard’s reception into heaven and/or on the style being thought to be comparable with fifteenth‐century manuscript illuminations. However, the miniature scale of the diptych, and its portable and private nature, make it inherently unlikely to have been a memorial picture.

Another theory proposed that the diptych was produced by a secret society or confraternity dedicated to maintaining Richard on the throne.¹⁴⁹ But a lack of evidence for the existence of any such society makes this idea equally doubtful.

Other writers have also seen the diptych as having been commissioned by someone other than Richard. It has been suggested that the diptych could have been commissioned by Richard’s half‐sister, the Countess of St Pol (died 1392),¹⁵⁰ by Anne of Bohemia (neither is compatible with the likely date of the diptych) or Isabelle of France (who would have been a mere child at the time it was completed),¹⁵¹ or made as a gift for Isabelle from Richard.¹⁵² However, much of the symbolism featured in the diptych would have been superfluous to such a purpose. It has also been suggested that the diptych was commissioned by Jean, Duke of Berry as a presentation gift for Richard.¹⁵³ Yet the collective meaning of the diptych is so personal to Richard that it probably could only have been devised at the English court.

The interaction between the two wings is ambiguous and there have been different interpretations regarding the purpose and theme of the diptych.¹⁵⁴ Several authors have connected it with the crusades, based on an illuminated manuscript written in 1395 entitled the Epître au Roi Richart (London, British Library, Royal 20 B VI, f.1v) which shows the crowns of Charles, King of France and Richard, King of England linked by the crown of thorns with drops of blood, and above the crowns the fleurs‐de‐lis of France and the leopards of England. Written by the Celestin monk Philippe de Mézières, it proposed the foundation of an order of knighthood to be called the Order of the Passion, and argued the case for Richard’s marriage to the daughter of Charles VI which would create a lasting peace between England and France, enabling the two kings to undertake a crusade to the Holy Land.¹⁵⁵ A second manuscript, La sustance de la chevalerie de la passion de Iehsu Crist en François (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 813), also written in 1395 by Philippe de Mézières, described the purposes of the order, the offices of the members, the regulations, the habit to be worn and the arms, accompanied by illuminations.¹⁵⁶ However, in the diptych Richard is not shown in the robes of the order, and the pennon is very different from that of the order; the theory of the diptych linked to a crusade is not generally accepted.¹⁵⁷

The consensus of opinion is that Richard II commissioned the diptych for his personal use and that it embodies his own exalted ideas of his sacral kingship, fusing secular and religious symbolism.¹⁵⁸ The Virgin, the Christ Child, the two royal saints, the eleven angels and the symbolism of the orb and pennon have all been linked in various ways to his particular kingship, as discussed individually above.¹⁵⁹

There is an obvious emphasis on crowns: apart from those worn by the three kings, crowns link the birds on the houppelande of Saint Edmund, and the earthly crowns invite comparison with the crown of thorns in the halo of the Christ Child, King of Heaven (see fig. 8 and fig. 40, above). Martin Conway saw the diptych as specifically commemorating the coronation.¹⁶⁰ John Theilmann described it as a ‘sacerdotal image of kingship’.¹⁶¹

Most authors consider Richard’s gesture to be one of reception, his hands open to receive the pennon.¹⁶² Charles Wood characterised the diptych as ‘an extended meditation on kingship’, with the banner of Saint George representing sovereignty which an angel will pass to Richard as a sign that his power is a divine gift.¹⁶³ According to Ferris Richard is about to take the banner and kiss the Child’s foot; the Child has given the pennon to the angel and is about to bless the king; he saw the diptych as expressing ‘the principles of the absolutist theory of monarchy’.¹⁶⁴

Nigel Morgan emphasised the Child blessing the pennon as key to the meaning of the diptych, with the orb symbolising England as the dowry of the Virgin and divine blessing being given to Richard for his authority as king,¹⁶⁵ although Christopher Wilson argued that the Child cannot be blessing the pennon since it is not within his sightline.¹⁶⁶

Ruth Wilkins Sullivan saw the gestures as reciprocal: Richard has dedicated himself to the Virgin by presenting her with the banner of Saint George; the Child is about to grasp it in order to return it as a sign of Richard’s sovereignty over England; he will kiss the Child’s foot in fealty; Richard, the divinely ordained king, has the support of angels carrying the royal devices of the new Anglo‐French alliance into the realm of heaven.¹⁶⁷

With its small scale, minutely exquisite detail and jewel‐like surfaces, the painting would have been for private, possibly solitary, contemplation and devotion. Kneeling in front of the open diptych, Richard would have identified himself as a perpetual supplicant, much as in a private Book of Hours where patrons had before them an image of themselves at prayer as they themselves knelt to pray.¹⁶⁸ However, the diptych differed from conventional religious devotional images. With its secular overtones it offered Richard a complex multi‐layered symbol of the nature of his kingship, as well as hope for the salvation of his soul.

Style and Iconography

The Wilton Diptych has been categorised as ‘International Gothic’. This was a style fashionable among the courts of Europe towards the end of the fourteenth century,¹⁶⁹ when panel paintings and manuscript illuminations were characterised by a refined elegance which combined an interest in the natural world of plants and animals with minute attention to decorative effects, as exploited in the rendering of rich fabrics, jewels and elaborate architecture. The diffusion of the taste for French paintings, sculpture and metalwork and for Sienese paintings, particularly those of Simone Martini who was painting a generation earlier, promoted in the courts of northern Europe at the end of the fourteenth century, contributed considerably to this approach.¹⁷⁰

Some individual details in the diptych are commonly found in works of art connected with northern courts. Gold backgrounds with stippled patterns (see fig. 41, above and fig. 47) are found in contemporary manuscript illuminations,¹⁷¹ but also in panel paintings of the period.¹⁷² The stippled modelling of the crowns reflects contemporary metalwork: there were numerous examples of gold objects poinconnés in Richard’s treasure.¹⁷³ The unruly hair of the angels occurs in French art, for example in The Angel with a Book in the Angers Apocalypse tapestries of 1377–80 designed by Jean Bondol (active about 1368–81), court painter to Charles V.¹⁷⁴ This motif may have been circulating in pattern books, as seen in two Bohemian(?) drawings of the head of the Angel of the Annunciation, in Harvard Art Museums (fig. 48) and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Kunstkammer.¹⁷⁵

The motif of the outward‐turned sole of the Child is commonly found in northern European painting and sculpture.¹⁷⁶ The concept of placing the crown of thorns and three nails within the Child’s halo (see fig. 40, above) may also be French in origin. A later circular painting of the Lamentation over the Body of Christ (Paris, Louvre), known as the ‘Petite Pietà ronde’ of about 1410–20(?) (fig. 49), has painted on its reverse the crown of thorns around the circumference and the three nails within (fig. 50).¹⁷⁷

John the Baptist’s camel‐skin garment with the head still attached can be found in England, as in a pilgrim badge, but also in a number of French examples,¹⁷⁸ including the camel‐skin worn by John the Baptist in the Parement de Narbonne (Paris, Musée du Louvre); a hoof or hooves are sometimes also shown.¹⁷⁹ The camel’s head in the Wilton Diptych is very similar to that in an early fifteenth‐century French embroidery where a hoof is also visible.¹⁸⁰

Attribution

No other work by the painter of the Wilton Diptych is known to survive.¹⁸¹

Some of the techniques of the diptych are Italian, such as the use of green underpaint for the flesh tones and a binding medium of egg (fig. 51, and see Painting Technique). There is no surviving Italian painting with which it can be compared and an Italian painter is probably to be ruled out.

If not an Italian, then the question is why the painter should have chosen egg as a medium, since oil was by then commonly used throughout northern Europe.¹⁸² It is possible that the painter was closely observing or indeed mimicking an early Italian, presumably Sienese, panel painting. The diptych has long been described as having drawn in various ways on Paris and Siena for its style and iconography,¹⁸³ and some aspects of the iconography reflect the paintings of Simone Martini and his workshop and followers.¹⁸⁴

Although English painting of the fourteenth century has often been said to show Italian influence, the extent of actual Italian paintings to be found in England at the end of the fourteenth century is not known. One documented example is that of an (unfinished) work which belonged to the painter Hugh of St Albans: consisting of six panels, it was described in his will as ‘of Lombardy’ (that is, Italian), possibly one and the same altarpiece costing over £45 which Abbot Thomas of St Albans (1349–1396) gave to the high altar of the Abbey of St Albans, which was also described in a chronicle as ‘Lombard’.¹⁸⁵

The close ties between the English and French courts, particularly during and after the negotiations for the marriage between Richard II and Isabelle of France in 1396, have led several scholars to explore the connections between the Wilton Diptych and French manuscript illuminations of the end of the fourteenth century. Richard’s library contained a number of French books of poetry and romance,¹⁸⁶ and friendship between the French and English courts led to exchanges of books among other gifts. In 1389 Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy gave Richard some illuminated manuscripts, and at the marriage of Richard and Isabelle, Richard received from Charles VI a present of the Belleville Breviary, painted by Jean Pucelle around 1325.¹⁸⁷ According to the chronicler Froissart, there were works by André Beauneveu in England,¹⁸⁸ while Froissart himself presented an illuminated copy of one of his own works to Richard II.¹⁸⁹

A number of scholars have considered the diptych to be French.¹⁹⁰ Ursula Ilg attributed it to a manuscript illuminator known as Hand A, possibly identifiable with Jacquemart de Hesdin, in the service of Jean, Duke of Berry; she saw the diptych as a presentation gift commissioned by the duke for Richard as the spouse of his great‐niece, Isabelle, and therefore made in France.¹⁹¹

There is no existing French panel painting with which the diptych can be directly compared. However, Gordon has argued that some details point to a possibly French painter. The overall composition of the Richard panel appears to find its origin in France, where there are several examples of a supplicant being presented by patron saints in the same way (see, for example, the lost textile depicting Charles V and his sons with their patron saints, fig. 52).¹⁹²

On the other hand, Alfred Thomas, who views the diptych as reflecting Bohemian ideas and court culture rather than French (that is, the result of the marriage to Anne rather than to Isabelle), draws attention to the depiction of Charles IV of Bohemia being presented to the Virgin and Child by Saint Wenceslas in a similar gesture, in a Bohemian panel painting dating from the 1370s.¹⁹³

The distinctive stance of the Virgin and Child seems to derive from sculpture rather than manuscript painting,¹⁹⁴ and to amalgamate two types. The standing Virgin with her head slightly bent to look at the diagonally presented Child, counter‐balancing the S‐swing of her pose and leaning outwards, may derive from the type of ‘Schöne Madonna’ common in Bohemia, the native land of Richard’s first wife, Anne. The statue known as the Krumlov Madonna (fig. 53) is an outstanding example, and is similar to the Wilton Diptych in the positioning of the Child’s legs (the arms of the Child in the Vienna statue are largely missing).¹⁹⁵ However, the simpler drapery folds of the Virgin in the diptych, with their fluent curves dipping across the front of her dress, and with the mantle pulled diagonally across the body and draped over the arm, compare more closely with a type of French sculpture of the Virgin and Child in which the arrangement of the drapery changed minimally between the mid‐thirteenth and mid‐fourteenth centuries (for example, fig. 54).¹⁹⁶ Moreover, it is possible that the Virgin was based on the image of the Virgin and Child with eleven angels listed in the inventory of Richard II’s treasure of 1398/9 (see above), which may conceivably have been French: the description of the turrets with battlements suggests something like the reliquary of the Holy Thorn (London, British Museum, The Waddesdon Bequest) made for Jean, Duke of Berry.¹⁹⁷

It is not impossible that a French painter was suggested to Richard, just as he employed an embroiderer, Stephen Vine, on the recommendation of Jean, Duke of Berry.¹⁹⁸ We know, for example, that Charles VI’s court painter, Jean d’Orléans, was involved in the preparation of Isabelle’s trousseau when she married Richard in 1396.¹⁹⁹ Gordon has suggested that Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, who acted as chief negotiator for the marriage, could have been involved in recommending a French painter to Richard.²⁰⁰

One question is how the painter of the diptych acquired his (or her) knowledge of Italian technique. At least one French painter familiar with Italian techniques who was active earlier in France was Jean d’Arbois, who is documented as having been brought from northern Italy to work for Philip the Bold: in 1373 the duke sent a coach to fetch Jean from Pavia in Lombardy to come (or to return?) to work for him; by June 1385 he had returned to Pavia.²⁰¹ While in Paris Jean is likely to have encountered some of the many local painters to whom he could have introduced Italian techniques.²⁰² It can be inferred from the work of Jean’s son, Stefano da Verona, who was born around 1375 and almost certainly trained with his father, that Jean d’Arbois used egg as a medium.²⁰³ Similarly, he could have introduced to French painting the type of naturalism which came to typify the work of Lombard painters, such as Michelino da Besozzo (active from 1388) (fig. 55), with whom Jean worked after his return to Italy,²⁰⁴ although the painter of the Wilton Diptych also had a potential model in the white hart which was given to Richard in 1393 and kept at Windsor.²⁰⁵

The change to the top of the pennon – apparently an afterthought – and the deeply personal nature of the heraldry and iconography suggest that the diptych was painted in England, at Richard’s court. It has been attributed to an English painter,²⁰⁶ but very little English panel painting survives from the Middle Ages, and nothing comparable to the diptych.²⁰⁷

The overall design and execution of the Wilton Diptych points to a single hand, although it is not impossible that a specialist gilder was involved (see Painting Technique).²⁰⁸ It has in the past been proposed that the armorial panel (fig. 56) was painted by a different artist,²⁰⁹ and in fact there are inconsistencies in the painting of the shield in which some, but not all, of the martlets are outlined in black (fig. 57). It was argued by Charles Beard and Francis Henry Cripps‐Day that the armorial panel offered evidence that the diptych must have been painted by an Englishman; Cripps‐Day suggested the unusual tuft in the lion’s tail indicated that it was modelled on the achievement of arms above the tomb of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral.²¹⁰

If another hand was in fact involved in the armorial panel, the likelihood is that it would have been one of Richard’s court painters who specialised in heraldic painting. A number of scholars have attributed the diptych to Gilbert Prince,²¹¹ or (more likely) to Thomas Lytlington,²¹² although nothing by them survives and most of the recorded works are for heraldic ephemera connected with festivals, entertainments and ceremonial occasions such as tournaments, birthdays and funerals. Gilbert Prince died probably in 1396.²¹³ He was succeeded by Thomas Prince (alias Thomas Lytlington), who accompanied Richard to Ireland in 1399 and returned to continue as painter to King Henry IV until at least 1402.²¹⁴

Provenance

The earliest record of the Wilton Diptych is in the collection of Charles I in 1639 (fig. 58 and fig. 59) when it was catalogued by Abraham van der Doort as having been given to the king by Sir James Palmer, who had it from Lord Jennings; in the margin this was corrected to Lady Jennings, and stated that in exchange she was given a portrait of the king by the Dutch painter Jan Lievens (1607–1674).²¹⁵ No Lord Jennings was known at the time. The scholar Mrs Reginald Lane Poole plausibly suggested that the original owner was Sir James Palmer’s daughter, Vere, who married Thomas, a son of Sir John Jennings.²¹⁶ According to Carlo Gambarini the diptych was given by King James II to Lord Castlemaine (that is, Roger Palmer, son of Sir James Palmer) when he went on an embassy to Rome (February 1686 to August 1687); after the death of Lord Castlemaine in 1705 it was bought from his heirs by Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke.²¹⁷ It remained at Wilton House, from which it takes its name, until it was bought by the National Gallery by special grant with contributions from Samuel Courtauld, Viscount Rothermere, C.F. Stoop and the National Art Collections Fund in 1929.

Engravings

(1) The interior wings were engraved in 1639 by Wenceslaus Hollar (fig. 58 and fig. 59), with a dedication to Charles I and two sets of Latin verses by Henry Peacham.

(2) The armorial panel was engraved in 1724 prefacing an address by Anstis to Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (see Provenance).²¹⁸

Exhibitions

London 1848 (77); Manchester 1857, provisional catalogue (920), definitive catalogue (42); London 1901–2 (2); London, Olympia 1928 (X13); London 1945–6 (37); London 1993; Oxford 2024.

Notes

I am grateful to Christopher Given‐Wilson and Caroline Campbell for reading a first draft of this catalogue entry.