The Raising of Lazarus

There are two existing works by Froment accepted as authentic; the triptych, The Raising of Lazarus which was made some fifteen years earlier than the The Virgin in the Burning Bush. The style is cruder, more Gothic, and the composition more congested. The crowd watching the miracle performed by Christ in the central panel have been placed before a pattern of ogee arches giving on a decorated gold background. The faces are formalized, almost identical; only in the group on the right has the artist chosen to give the figures individual characters, verging on caricature. Lazarus is already sitting upright in the coffin placed in the foreground (St John, 11, 44). On the left, Lazarus’s sisters, Martha and Mary, react with emotion. The young man looking at us from the upper left-hand corner of the panel is supposed to be a self portrait of the artist himself. The two panels which form part of the triptych represent St Mary Magdalen anointing Christ’s feet and Martha announcing to Christ the death of Lazarus.