DAVID, Gerard

The two panels in the National Gallery, the Adoration of the Kings and the Lamentation, were part of a larger altarpiece which was probably painted in 1515, when David moved from Bruges to Antwerp.

The oval-faced Virgin with typically downcast eyes and prominent dimpled chin; the widely spaced placements of her legs, like two columns, supporting the erect Christ Child on her lap; the neatly arranged, cascading draperies spilling out onto the floor in tightly composed, angular folds - these are all characteristic of David’s paintings of the Virgin and Child.

This painting is based on a lost composition of Hugo van der Goes. The kings approach the newborn and his mother in adoration keeping their distance. The composition is thus divided into two halves, which are connected by the sheaf of cereals in the foreground, symbolizing the sacrament of the Eucharist, which mediates between God and man.

This work, the style and technique of which are typical of Gerard David, has long been attributed to him. After Hans Memling’s death, Gerard David came to be viewed as one of the best painters in Bruges, where he worked from 1484 until his death.

The narration of Christ’s nativity in St Matthew’s Gospel produced a whole series of medieval stories and legends in which artists found iconographic inspiration. The Adoration of the Magi that Gerard David painted around 1500 takes place in the ruins of a palace serving as a stable. In the foreground the Virgin, seated on the edge of a manger, presents the Child to the three magi, Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, who have arrived to offer gold, incense and myrrh, symbols of his kingship, his divinity and his sacrifice. Resting on his walking stick, Joseph stands next to his young wife. The magi symbolise the three ages of life, but also the three continents known at the time, Europe, Africa and Asia. They are accompanied by a large retinue, certain members of which escort them to the Child. The others wait, at a distance, on their mounts. Their exotic costumes and the presence of a camel indicate that they have come from afar. To the right a shepherd observes them. In the distance, to the left, above the town of Bethlehem, shines the star that has guided them.

The subject is treated in the iconographic tradition of the time. The ruins could be an allusion to King David’s palace or an evocation of the fallen synagogue. Gerard David has nonetheless opted to represent the episode of the adoration of the magi in a wider context by multiplying the figures present at the scene, thereby strengthening the significance and importance of this event. It is not impossible that these include portraits of the painter’s contemporaries. The man to the right of the pillar could be a self-portrait of Gerard David, though this cannot be proved. The same hypothesis has been formulated for the man looking at the spectators in the far left of the scene. Gerard David has produced a realistic, palpable and convincing rendering of this episode of Christ’s incarnation, in the manner of the Flemish Primitives of whom he is one of the last representatives.

The centre part of the small triptych represents the battle of St Michael with the Devil. On the side panels St Jerome and St Anthony of Padua can be seen in a contiguous landscape as a background.

Gerard David was the last major figure of the Bruges school, founded by Jan van Eyck. Although David worked on a much larger scale than Van Eyck, he too was known for the acute observation of details of the natural world and their rendition in glowing, enamel-like oils.

The picture representing the battle of St Michael with the Diable is the central panel of a small triptych. On the side panels St Jerome and St Anthony of Padua can be seen in a contiguous landscape as a background.

Gerard David and his workshop are credited with producing lavish illuminated manuscripts, including the Breviary of Isabella of Castile. Francisco de Rojas, the Spanish ambassador to the Netherlands, may have presented the breviary to the queen in 1497. One of its miniature, The Adoration of the Magi, closely resembles a panel painting attributed to David. Regardless of whether the breviary’s miniatures were produced by his hand, David’s painting techniques were imitated by Bruges illuminators throughout the last decade of the fifteenth century and well into the sixteenth.

This panel (trimmed above) probably formed the left wing of a diptych or triptych. The possible right wing is the Crucifixion in Berlin.

The patron of the painting, Bernardijn Salviatis, was a canon at St Donatian’s church in Bruges. He is depicted with Sts Martin, Bernardino (his name saint), and Donatian (titular saint of his church. All of the figures face right, implying their devotion toward a central figure. The beggar in the background provides a saintly attribute of St Martin, who shared his cloak.

This early work of the artist is closely related the the Haarlem school of painting.

This panel is an early work and reveals the influence of van der Weyden, van Eyck and Campin. The compositional formula is typical of Crucifixion paintings of the time, with a group of figures on each side of the cross and an ample landscape in the background.

In this painting many of the figures hearken back to the most inventive masters (Jan van Eyck or Robert Campin) active long before. This is seen in such features as the oblique placement of the cross and the garb of the Roman soldiers, and from details like the lively dog digging up Adam’s bones, at the right, buried at the base of the cross, his skull giving the site the name of Golgotha (“the place of the skull”).

These two panels were on the reverse side of the wings of a triptych with the Nativity, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The Grimani Breviary is one of the most famous and best known illuminated manuscript. It contains 831 pages with 110 pictures all of them in a decorated frame. It was produced in Ghent and Bruges by a group of illuminators, among whom were Simon Bening and the panel painter and illuminator Gerard David, who was enlisted to produce some exquisitely painted heads in important miniatures and at least one full-page miniature, Mary Magdalen Penitent.

This type of Pietà, whether or not accompanied by other holy women, appears more than once in Gerard David’s oeuvre and was adopted on various occasions by painters of his circle such as Adriaan Isenbrant or Ambrosius Benson. A model drawing may have existed in David’s studio or perhaps there was another prototype by his hand which is now lost. On closer examination David seems here to have built on both Hugo van der Goes and Hans Memling.

The composition of the scene is a kind of reprise of Memling’s Reins triptych (Memlingmuseum, Bruges). Here too, the scene is set in front of a landscape with on the left buildings intended to represent Jerusalem and on the right a group of rocks which serves as a repoussoir. The tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, which he placed at Christ’s disposal, has been hewn out of the rocks here. Wearing a turban and exotic clothing he stands in profile before the tombstone, while Nicodemus enters the tomb. With Memling it is a Roman sarcophagus which stands in front of the rock and which is being opened by Joseph and Nicodemus. The composition itself, with the body held almost upright under the armpits and the head nodding to one side, derives from the right wing of Hugo van der Goes’ Lamentation diptych (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). The figure of the Virgin placed parallel along Christ’s body with her arm diagonally across it is an adaptation in reverse of the Virgin’s posture in Van der Goes. The same is probably also the case with the position of the squatting Mary Magdalene. The St John, with his right knee and foot in frontal view, is also borrowed from Memling’s Reins triptych. The spire in the landscape is probably intended to suggest Bruges’ Our Lady’s Church.

Although it has no basis in scripture, the depiction of the Lamentation had been established in western art since the 13th century. David treated the subject and the closely related Deposition on a number of occasions.

The Virgin, John the Evangelist, and Mary Magdalene here mourn over the body of Christ on the hilltop of Golgotha. The city of Jerusalem is depicted in the left background, although the landscape shows the fertile green hills and valleys of the Low Countries.

This subject was extremely popular among artists in Bruges, and several versions of it exist by Gerard David and others.

The two panels in the National Gallery, the Adoration of the Kings and the Lamentation, were part of a larger altarpiece which was probably painted in 1515, when David moved from Bruges to Antwerp.

Several versions of this picture are known, all attributed to Gerard David, whose style and painting technique they display. The presentation of the Virgin in the foreground, half turned toward the viewer, allows us to enter the intimacy of this domestic interior, with its window opened onto a contemporary townscape. A basket and a prayer-book taken out of its cover are lying on a console against the wall. To the left, a cupboard carries an earthenware jug and a small bunch of flowers. As an attentive mother, the Virgin delicately takes the soup for her Son whom she is holding seated on her knees. He is dressed in a light linen shirt and is also playing at holding a wooden spoon. This highly realistic representation of a spoon-fed meal is a variation of the theme, more common at the time, of the Virgin nursing the Child. The Child fed by the Virgin is a metaphor of the believer nourished by his mother the Church and by Christ himself. The bread at the front of the scene and the jug on the cupboard are the eucharistic symbols of his body and his blood. The very idea of Christ’s incarnation through which humanity has been saved is evoked here.

The picture, intended for private devotion, is conceived in a manner typical of the late Middle Ages. By handling the subject as a contemporary scene, the painter abolishes the frontier between the spiritual and the material worlds, calling on the believer to live his faith directly and individually. Conceived for private use, the Virgin and Child with the Milk Soup was probably painted many times over, as testified by other extant versions. The Brussels painting has been produced using a pattern containing the entire composition, which was also applied for another version conserved at Genoa. A variation of this pattern was used for two other versions conserved in New York and San Diego. It would appear that the painter had a basic layout which could be adapted according to his clients’ wishes. This phenomenon illustrates the development of the art of the Flemish Primitives, who at the end of the 15th century were faced with growing demand from their bourgeois clients. The various versions coming from Gerard David’s workshop suggests that a part of work must have been undertaken by his assistants.

The cornfield with reapers in the background is an allusion to the miracle of the cornfield well-known in the Middle Ages. It was told that during the flight to Egypt the Holy Family passed by a husbandman sowing seed. He was instructed by the Virgin to say to inquirers that he had seen them go by at the time of sowing. The corn miraculously grew and ripened overnight. Herod’s soldiers arriving next day gave up pursuit on being told quite truthfully that their quarry had gone by at the time of sowing.

Gerard David was born in Holland, but was enrolled as a Free Master in Bruges, where he died in 1523. The panels depicting Pilate’s Dispute with the High Priest, and The Holy Women and Saint John at Golgotha, which originally formed a triptych together with Christ Nailed to the Cross (National Gallery, London) date from the period 1480-85.

Gerard David was born in Holland, but was enrolled as a Free Master in Bruges, where he died in 1523. The panels depicting Pilate’s Dispute with the High Priest, and The Holy Women and Saint John at Golgotha, which originally formed a triptych together with Christ Nailed to the Cross (National Gallery, London) date from the period 1480-85.

Gerard David interpreted with great originality the theme of Rest during the Flight to Egypt. The Virgin and Child are placed in the centre in a landscape. A tiny depiction of the Holy Family on its way to Egypt can be seen in the background on the right. The influence of Renaissance art, especially Leonardo, is clearly visible, notably in the use of sfumato and the atmospheric variations of the background.

The short biblical account of the Flight into Egypt (Matt. 2:13-14) was elaborated upon by Early Christian and medieval theologians. In one of these apocryphal legends, the weary family paused during their journey after three days of travel. The Virgin longed for food, but the date–palm branches were too high for Joseph to pick any fruit. Thereupon Jesus commanded the tree to lower its branches. David deemphasized this miracle by giving Joseph a sturdy stick and by replacing the date palm with a Flemish chestnut tree, but a sixteenth–century audience would have remembered the apocryphal story. There are also indications of the special significance of the family: the Madonna wears robes in her symbolic colours of red and blue; fine rays of golden light emanate from the mother’s head and that of the child; and the bunch of grapes held by the Madonna is a well–known symbol of the Eucharist.

In his late period David painted several different surviving versions of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt. These paintings are very gentle in mood, and the palette creates an exquisite harmony of different blues. This dominant blue tonality and the delicate treatment of form are characteristic of David’s late style.

In the present version David created a mood of calm equilibrium. The Madonna and Child are centrally placed, while receding diagonals and alternating bands of light and dark skillfully lead back into the landscape and harmoniously relate the figures to their surroundings. The predominance of the restful colour blue throughout the composition unifies the work.

This composition presents the Flight into Egypt as a continuous narrative. In a tiny background scene the Holy Family emerges from the forest, en route to the contemporary Netherlandish town at the left. In the foreground Mary nurses the Child in a moment of repose on their arduous journey, which the viewer is visually meant to follow. David achieved in this painting a remarkable balance of colour and a serene sense of light and atmosphere. His awareness of Italian Renaissance conventions is evident in the pyramidal motif of the Virgin and Child and his use of chiaroscuro to convey the volume of the figures.

This Rest of the Flight into Egypt survives in several copies and versions, testifying not only to the popularity of the theme at the time, but also to David’s careful planning for an adaptable model for open market sales.

The drawings in fifteenth-century model books functioned as a stock of exemplars that could be reused by an artist. Drawn on prepared paper in metalpoint, the images in model books were highly finished. Because of their frequent use, only a small number of these drawings survived, but aspects of this practice are known to have persisted in early sixteenth-century Netherlandish workshops.

Sometime about 1500 Gerard David copied four heads from Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece. In his metalpoint drawing, based on the popes and bishops shown among the Holy Martyrs on the altarpiece, David carefully positioned the heads so as not to overlap, thus the artist could later quickly integrate them into a painting.

The two panels in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, representing the angel and the Virgin of the Annunciation, respectively, were part of a multi-storied polyptych commissioned in 1506 for the high altar of the Benedictine abbey church of San Gerolamo della Cervara, near Genoa.

The two panels in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, representing the angel and the Virgin of the Annunciation, respectively, were part of a multi-storied polyptych commissioned in 1506 for the high altar of the Benedictine abbey church of San Gerolamo della Cervara, near Genoa.

In this poignant image, the Crucifixion is presented as an enactment of the written word due to the inclusion of St Jerome. The Church Father is shown as somewhat detached from the event at hand, apparently reading about it from his translation of the Bible. True to the account of the Gospels, David has provided an appropriate sense of time and space. The sky is darkened at the moment of Christ’s death on Golgotha (literally, “the place of the skull”), and the holy city of Jerusalem with its prominent Church of the Dome of the Rock forms the backdrop.

The left wing of the diptych depicts the Virgin and Child in the Church, while the right wing the donor Antonio Siciliano and St Anthony.

The diptych was commissioned by Antonio Siciliano who served as chamberlain and secretary to Massimiliano Sforza, the Duke of Milan. In 1513 he was dispatched to Margaret of Austria in Mechelen on a diplomatic mission. It is assumed that Siciliano commissioned the painting from Gossart, who about 1513 worked at Margaret’s court in Mechelen.

However, the authorship of the diptych is debated, especially that of the donor (right) wing. Several alternative suggestions were proposed, the authorship being connected to the Antwerp Mannerists or to the artists contributing to the Grimani Breviary. Presently the right wing is attributed to Jan Gossart.

The left panel is attributed to Gerard David. This attribution is supported by recent technical examination. More than any other Bruges painter, David inherited Jan van Eyck’s legacy. The left panel of the diptych is an adaptation of van Eyck’s Madonna in the Church. David made adjustments to the earlier model: he centred the Virgin in a wider view of the nave, added a third arch to the choir screen, and closed off the composition at the right with a series of columns matching those of the bays opposite.

Gerard David was born in Holland, but was enrolled as a Free Master in Bruges, where he died in 1523. The panels depicting Pilate’s Dispute with the High Priest, and The Holy Women and Saint John at Golgotha, which originally formed a triptych together with Christ Nailed to the Cross (National Gallery, London) date from the period 1480-85.

David’s first paintings probably date from the years between 1480 and 1484. They reflect a Dutch influence in his early training. Soon after he arrived in Bruges, however, in 1487 and 1488, the municipal authorities requested him to paint a series of panels for the deputy burgomaster’s room in the town hall. This major commission took the form of a large diptych that was first mentioned in the city archives as a Last Judgment, but which in fact depicts The Judgment of Cambyses. The subject is taken from Herodotus: the judge Sisamnes, who had been guilty of prevarication, was arrested and punished by Cambyses, the King of Persia. For his crimes, Sisamnes was condemned to be flayed alive. David represents this scene with a cold and exemplary cruelty. Like the paintings Dieric Bouts made for the town hall in Louvain, David’s panels were intended as a stern warning to judges against the temptation of corruption.

David’s first paintings probably date from the years between 1480 and 1484. They reflect a Dutch influence in his early training. Soon after he arrived in Bruges, however, in 1487 and 1488, the municipal authorities requested him to paint a series of panels for the deputy burgomaster’s room in the town hall. This major commission took the form of a large diptych that was first mentioned in the city archives as a Last Judgment, but which in fact depicts The Judgment of Cambyses. The subject is taken from Herodotus: the judge Sisamnes, who had been guilty of prevarication, was arrested and punished by Cambyses, the King of Persia. For his crimes, Sisamnes was condemned to be flayed alive. David represents this scene with a cold and exemplary cruelty. Like the paintings Dieric Bouts made for the town hall in Louvain, David’s panels were intended as a stern warning to judges against the temptation of corruption.

The left panel depicts: The Corrupt Judge Arrested.

David’s first paintings probably date from the years between 1480 and 1484. They reflect a Dutch influence in his early training. Soon after he arrived in Bruges, however, in 1487 and 1488, the municipal authorities requested him to paint a series of panels for the deputy burgomaster’s room in the town hall. This major commission took the form of a large diptych that was first mentioned in the city archives as a Last Judgment, but which in fact depicts The Judgment of Cambyses. The subject is taken from Herodotus: the judge Sisamnes, who had been guilty of prevarication, was arrested and punished by Cambyses, the King of Persia. For his crimes, Sisamnes was condemned to be flayed alive. David represents this scene with a cold and exemplary cruelty. Like the paintings Dieric Bouts made for the town hall in Louvain, David’s panels were intended as a stern warning to judges against the temptation of corruption.

The right panel depicts: The Flaying of Sisammes.

In this painting the sitting postures of the women and their enchantingly oval faces are remarkable, and the whole work has great atmosphere and truthfulness. The still-life painting of the festal meal is fascinating.

The detail shows the Bride.

The detail shows the Virgin.

The picture shows a detail of the lower right corner.

Comparable with Italian Sacra Conversazione compositions from around 1500, David’s panel is characterized by a happy balance between stillness and movement, between space and plane, and between the overall homogeneity of the composition and the careful execution of its details.

The starting-point for the present picture was probably Jan van Eyck’s Virgin and Child and Canon van der Paele. Here, however, the arrangement of the figures in a concave curve is freer, the anatomical detail more animated. The kneeling donor, with his powerful plastic modelling and portrait-like features, is set against the aristocratically refined figures of the saints. The facial types employed for the women recall Hans Memling, whose leading position in Bruges painting was inherited by David.

The painter renounces virtually all movement. St Catherine, identified as a princess by her crown, turns shyly towards Christ, who places a ring on her finger. The exquisite execution of details - accessories, clothes, the carpet hanging behind the Virgin and the still-lifes of flowers on either side of the throne once again points to the influence of Jan van Eyck. A tendency towards multiplicity and diversity is evinced by the townscape seen over the city wall, where secular buildings are combined with grandiose civic architecture in what were then modern architectural forms. The lower storeys of the tower possibly contain a reference to the belfry in Bruges.

Gerard David provided a link between the late Gothic art of the earlier Netherlandish masters and the new Renaissance style; in his works we see a felicitous combination of the vigour characteristic of the northern masters and the brilliant technique and feeling for form seen in the work of those of the southern provinces. He painted mostly altarpieces, Madonnas and saints, striving to make the figures lifelike and including many natural, intimate details. In the Nativity the shepherds, ungainly in their clumsy boots, look as if they scarcely dare to approach the Infant (the figure in the background opening is usually believed to be a self-portrait) and the streets and houses of the town in the background are depicted with the detailed clarity of a topographer.

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This painting, which most likely was intended as a single, private devotional panel, combines the depiction of the Nativity and the Adoration of the Shepherds as described in both biblical and mystical literature. It probably dates from the early 1480s, before David established himself in Bruges. The homely and naive figure types and the geometric simplification of the heads of the Virgin and angels reflect models the artist knew from his early training in the northern Netherlands. Already present is the characteristic combination of serene landscape, simple architectural setting, and meditative figures that would contribute to the painter’s popularity.

The figure of the Madonna can be traced back to a type of Rogier van der Weyden (Altarpiece Bladelin, 1452-55).

Peasants and shepherds were represented first in Netherlandish painting by the Master of Fl�malle and Jan van Eyck. Their influence, as well as that of Hugo van der Goes can be observed on this painting of the young Gerard David. It is assumed that the young shepherd in the foreground represents a self-portrait of the artist.

David focuses attention on the mystery of the Incarnation - that is, Christ’s birth and sacrifice for the redemption of mankind. Despite the joyful moment depicted, the figures all wear somber expressions, foreshadowing Christ’s eventual suffering and death. The sheaf of grain parallel to the manger refers to John 6:41: “I am the bread which came down from Heaven.” The two donors, who are presented by Sts Jerome and Leonard, have remained unidentified. They could have been called Catherine and Anthony, since they are painted with the attributes of saints with these names.

Two forest scenes, originally on the reverse of our wings, were separated from the altarpiece and are now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, still on panel.

The side wings representing the portraits of the donors (Anselmus de Boodt, Johanna Voet) and their children were executed by Pieter Pourbus (1523-87) in 1573.

This work was commissioned by the Carmelite Convent of Bruges, the most important religious institution of the town. It decorated the high altar of church of the Order.

The work of Gerard David, another foreigner drawn to the wealthy city of Bruges, offers a final summary of the technical and spiritual tradition of the fifteenth century. David was born in Oudewater in Holland, but worked mostly in Bruges between 1484 and 1523, where, in a manner of speaking, he became Memling’s successor. Two of his masterpieces, The Judgment of Cambyses (1498) and the Triptych of Jan des Trompes, belong to the Groeninge Museum in Bruges. In both works, Memling’s flawless precision and cool smoothness are combined with the anatomical realism and seriousness of Van der Goes.

The triptych with the Baptism of Christ, even though it was probably done after the Judgment of Cambyses, still breathes the quiet, ethereal atmosphere so characteristic of the Flemish Primitives. It is also one of the period’s most remarkable artistic evocations of landscape and flora. It was commissioned by Jan des Trompes, a leading civil servant in Bruges, who appears in the painting with his first and second wives (front and rear of the right wing). His third wife donated it to the Chapel of the Vierschaar tribunal in Saint Basil’s Church after his death.

The rear of the left wing (at the right) represents the second wife of the donor, Jan des Trompes.

The Baptism of Christ forms the central section of a triptych commissioned by the treasurer of the city of Bruges, Jean Trompes. The wings show the donor’s family and patron saints on the inside, and the Virgin and Child and the donor’s first wife with St Elizabeth on the outside.

Nowhere does the artist demonstrate more clearly both his talents and his limitations. The present scene contains virtually no action. The kneeling figures of John the Baptist and the angel dressed in a sumptuous cope reveal a mutual correspondence in their approximate symmetry and subtly differentiated positions. The panel’s central axis is strongly emphasized by the figure of Christ, the dove of the Holy Ghost and the apparition of God the Father.

In David’s paintings the landscape forming the background to religious scenes takes on the motionless and precious look of something whose serenity opposes it to the tragedy of what is happening in the picture. One has only to look at the forest in the background of the Baptism of Christ, with its huge ivy-covered trunks, the strong rhythm of its escarpments and its foliage standing out against the blue of the distance. The still life of flowers in the foreground is characterized by a dazzling wealth of minute detail.

This altarpiece was at one time considered one of the best works of Memling. The study of its wing panels was rightly recommended to landscape painters as the work of a marvellous painter of foliage.

The left panel of the triptych represents the donor, Jean Des Trompes, with his son Philip. Behind the donor his patron saint, St John the Evangelist can be seen.

On the right panel the first wife of the donor is depicted with her four daughters and St Elisabeth of Hungary.

Jean de Sedano, a Castilian merchant commissioned from David the Triptych of the Sedano Family. This altarpiece, with its ongoing background landscape unifying the picture space, opposes the world of sinners (Adam and Eve on the outside, not shown here) to the heavenly world (the Virgin and her symbolic garden and angels) and the praying donors depicted on the inside with St John the Baptist (left) and St John the Evangelist (right).

The two panels representing Christ Carrying the Cross, with the Crucifixion (left) and The Resurrection, with the Pilgrims of Emmaus (right) formed the movable wings of an altarpiece. When opened, on certain feast days, the panels would have been displayed, flanking a central image, perhaps the Lamentation. The reverses of the two Passion scenes, displayed when the wings were closed, show the Virgin Annunciate and the Archangel Gabriel, painted in grisaille to emulate sculpture.

Characteristic of David’s mature style are the deep, translucent colours and the sensitive integration of figures and space in the Passion scenes.

The two panels representing Christ Carrying the Cross, with the Crucifixion (left) and The Resurrection, with the Pilgrims of Emmaus (right) formed the movable wings of an altarpiece. When opened, on certain feast days, the panels would have been displayed, flanking a central image, perhaps the Lamentation. The reverses of the two Passion scenes, displayed when the wings were closed, show the Virgin Annunciate and the Archangel Gabriel, painted in grisaille to emulate sculpture.

The Annunciation is executed in grisaille to emulate sculpture, yet the flesh tones and hair of the figures depart from the monochromatic gray, in keeping with the softer, naturalistic vein prevalent in Bruges painting at the turn of the century.

Gerard David presents the Virgin enthroned as the Queen of Heaven, and uses simple, monumental forms to underscore the majestic solemnity of her presence. As queen, the Virgin is seated upon an ornately carved throne that is shaded by an embroidered canopy and backed by a shimmering, brocaded cloth of honour; at her feet lies a luxurious carpet with an orientalizing design. The angels wear robes made of shot, or changeant, silk, so called because its colour differs depending on the angle from which it is viewed. The celebratory nature of the moment is emphasized by the harp and the lute held by the angels, which allude to the celestial music surrounding the Virgin and Child. All of these severe and formal regal adornments are counterbalanced by the intimacy of the scene, which focuses on the interaction of the mother and child, and his playful attention to the leaves of her prayer book.

The influence of Italian Renaissance art can be seen more clearly in the works of Gerard David than in those of Hans Memling, though both artists worked in Bruges for Italian patrons. Painted about 1505, this exceptionally well-preserved panel was probably commissioned by someone associated with the Carthusian monastery of Genadendal, outside the walls of Bruges and seen here in the background. The composition is based on Jan van Eyck’s Virgin and Child at the Fountain of 1439 (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp). Gerard David added a different setting with musical angels and turned the Child’s head toward the viewer.

Several versions of this picture are known, all attributed to Gerard David, whose style and painting technique they display. The various versions coming from Gerard David’s workshop suggests that a part of work must have been undertaken by his assistants.