More mysteries unveiled concerning the Ghent Altarpiece

The new research was triggered by a discovery by Hélène Verougstraete, an art historian who is specialized in frames and inscriptions of paintings of 15^th and 16^th century paintings from the Low Countries. She discovered that the embroidery on the brocade backdrops behind John the Baptist and Mary were legible, using modern technology.

These brocade backdrops are an impressive feat by Van Eyck, as they were very detailed and applied using a special technique that allowed the painter to add texture and depth to the paint. This made the fabric stand out and appear more life-like, but the added texture was also very fragile, causing it to get worn and damaged over time.

The text on the brocade was for a long time hard to decipher. The discovery of Hélène Verougstraete is well-documented by dozens of images in the database of Art in Flanders.

Reading and deciphering the inscriptions proved to be a rather complex mission, and a lot of images were consulted in the process. At artinflanders.be you can find hundreds of detailed images of this work, but in the underlying archive, even more images are stored.

The short inscription that is repeated several times consists of both Arabic numbers, letters and abbreviations, and a part of it is still hardly legible. Despite those challenges, Hélène Verougstraete’s research convincingly establishes that it is a reference of Jan Van Eyck, the youngest of the two brothers, who finished the painting to Hubert Van Eyck, his older sibling, who initiated the work, but passed away before he had the chance to finish it.

The precise revelations of the research can be found in the publication by Hélène Verougstraete and Wim Verbaal. Even though many questions still remain unanswered, the research supports the claim that the panels of both Mary and John the Baptist can be attributed to Jan Van Eyck.

This attribution also has its consequences for the origin story of the Ghent altarpiece and the initial purpose and scope of the project. Was the altarpiece as we now know it the same as the altarpiece as it was ordered by Joos Vijd, or were certain panels added later on? And where did Jan Van Eyck take over from his brother? For the entire story, we gladly refer you to the dedicated edition of Openbaar Kunstbezit Vlaanderen, where you can also admire dozens of detailed images, delivered by artinflanders.be

Artinflanders.be hosts and preserves an impressive amount of images of the Ghent Altarpiece: from scientific photo’s taken by the KIK during several phases of the restauration and the images of ClosertoVanEyck (the J. Paul Getty Foundation), to the gigapixel images by the Google Cultural Institute and the historic photographs taken by the Monuments Men during the second world war. Apart from those images, we also keep our own images in our archive from before and after the restauration. In total, artinflanders is responsible for the sustainable preservation of 2.967 images of the Ghent Altarpiece.

Art in Flanders is an initiative of meemoo, Flemish Institute for the Archive. Sustainable preservation of images is a part of our core business. Many of the images in our database are created by us, or on request. Some images are also delivered by external organisations. On our online platform, we consolidate these images and we make them accessible for private or professional use, in accordance with the agreements that were made with the owners.