The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jan van Eyck and Workshop Assistant (Netherlandish, Maaseik, active by 1422, died 1441 Bruges), The Crucifixion; The Last Judgment, ca. 1430, Oil on canvas, transferred from wood, Each Panel 22 ¼ “ x 7 2/3” (56.5 x 19.7 cm).

The Crucifixion and

The Last Judgment

Presented byJill Hayes

Art historian Stephanie Buck proposes that the Eyckian Last Judgmentwas the model for the Petrus Christus’Last Judgment . -Christus most likely sawthe work and based hiscomposition on the Eyckian panel

-Note the similar division of sections of heaven, earth, and hell

Eyckian Last Judgment Petrus Christus’ Last Judgment, ca. 1452

DATE &

HISTORY

Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, Jan van Eyck, Saint Barbara, ca. 1437Grisaille on wood, Dimensions: 31 x 18 cm

Louvre Museum, France, artist unknown, Adoration of the Christ Child and Crucifixion, polychrome ivory diptych from the Meuse Valley, France, middle of the 14th century, Dimensions: 6 ½ “ x 4 ½” (17 x 11.1 cm)

New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, artist unknown, The Coronation of The Virgin and The Last Judgment, ivory diptych from France, ca. 1260-1270, Dimensions: 5 x 5 1/8 x 3/4 in. (12.7 x 13 x 1.9 cm)

Visual Description &

Iconography

Left Panel; The

Crucifixion

Jan Van Eyck

Patron

Longinus

Left Panel, Lower

Section; The

Crucifixion

John the Baptist

Virgin Mary

Mary Magdalene

Erythraean and Cumaean

Sibyls

Top, Right Panel;

The Last Judgment

Lower, Right Panel; The Last Judgment

Close Up of Archangel Michael and the Hell Scene

The Crucifixion, close up of landscape

Jan van Eyck, Baptism of Christ, lower section of the illumination from the Milan-Turin Hours, close up of landscape

Jan van Eyck, Birth of John the Baptist and Baptism of Christ, Illumination from the Milan-Turin Hours

Jan van Eyck, Sovereign’s Prayer, destroyed illumination from the Turin-Milan Hours

Close up of the crowd and horses in The Crucifixion

Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, Jan van Eyck, Saint Barbara, ca. 1437Grisaille on wood, Dimensions: 31 x 18 cm

Underdrawing Techniques detected by IRR in both the Eyckian Diptych and the Saint Barbara:

•The modeling strokes are short and washed out.

•Shaped forms are outlined with narrow parallel hatching to indicate where shadows are to be defined.

•The contour lines are vigorously placed and are made with long strokes .

•The diagonal crosshatch lines are sparingly used in depressed areas and folds of the draperies.

Bedford Master, Crucifixion, Vienna

Technical Examination & Tests :

Examination of the original frames- by Dr. Hurbert von Sonnenburg and George Bisacca at the MET in Feb. 1994 determined most parts of the frames are original.

Technical examination under the microscope- by Maryan Ainsworth & Stephanie Buck in 1995 determined that there are two different painting styles on each panel.

Infrared Reflectogram/IRR photos were produced by Maryan Ainsworth at the MET 1995. No distinction between two different artists can be confirmed based on the underdrawings. The compositions were fully drawn in a liquid medium with a fine brush support the correlation to other underdrawing patterns by Jan van Eyck. The arrows detected by the IRR also support that the text and images were interacting components for the meaning of the picture with the discovery of arrows pointing from the inscriptions to the corresponding images.

Dendrochronology/Tree-Ring Dating-None, original wood panels have been lost

Bibliography:1. Ainsworth, Maryan W. "Religious Painting from about 1420 to 1500: In the Eye of the Beholder." In From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early

Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, by Maryan W. Ainsworth and Keith Christiansen, 79-89. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998.

2. Borchert, Till-Holger. "Innovation, Reconstruction, and Deconstruction: Early Netherlandish Diptychs in the Mirror of Their Reception." In Essays in Context: Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych, edited by John O. Hand and Ron Spronk, 173-189. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

3. Buck, Stephanie. "Petrus Christus's Berlin Wings and the Metropolitan Museum's Eyckian Diptych." In Petrus Christus in Renaissance Bruges: An Interdisciplinary Approach, edited by Maryan Ainsworth, 63-83. New York: Turnhout, 1995.

4. Carroll, Margaret. Painting and Politics in Northern Europe: Van Eyck, Bruegel, Rubens, and Their Contemporaries. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008.

5. Chatelet, Albert. Early Dutch Painting: Painting in the Northern Netherlands in the Fifteenth Century. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1981.

6. Labuda, Adam S. "Jan van Eyck, Realist and Narrator: On the Structure and Artistic sources of the New York Crucifixion." Artibus et Historiae 14 (1993): 9-30.

7. Marrow, James H. "History, Historiography, and Pictorial Invention in the Turin-Milan Hours." In In Detail: New Studies of Northern Renaissance Art in Honor of Walter S. Gibson, edited by Laurinda S. Dixon, 1-14. Cleveland: Brepols Publishers, 1998.

8. Pacht, Otto. Van Eyck and The Founders of Early Netherlandish Painting. London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 1994 (English Edition).9. Panofsky, Erwin. Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953.10. Ridderbos, Bernhard. "Objects and Questions." In Early Netherlandish Paintings: Rediscovery, Reception, and Research, by Anne, van

Veen, Henk, and Ridderbos, Bernhard van Buren, 4-170. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 1995.11. Schiller, Gertrud. Iconography of Christian Art, Vol. I and Vol. II. Greenwich: New York Graphic Society Ltd., 1972.12. Snyder, James. northern Renaissance Art: Painting Sculpture, The Graphic Arts From 1350 to 1575. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.,

1985.13. Upton, Joel M. Petrus Christus: His Place in Fifteenth-Century Flemish Painting. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University

Press, 1990.14. Weale, W.H. James. Hubert and John van Eyck: Their Life and Work. London: William Brown & Co. Ltd., 1928.15. Wehle, Harry B., and Margaretta Salinger. A Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch, and German Paintings. New York: The Metropolitan

Museum of Art, 1947.

Questions & Comments