Ernest Gilliat-Smith

In another volume of this series we have already said something concerning the origin and history of mediÆval Flemish art. Within the limited space at our disposal anything more than a mere sketch would be impossible, and it would be superfluous and wearisome to repeat in the present handbook, which is in some sense the companion volume to The Story of Bruges, what has been there set down on the subject in question. We shall therefore content ourselves by adding here, by way of complement, a few notes (culled for the most part from Mr Weale's published writings) on the mediÆval art corporations of the Low Country—those famous guilds of Saint Luke, of Our Lady, of Saint John, within whose ranks were formed all the great Flemish masters of the old national school, and by recounting as briefly as may be what is known of the five most noted Brabant painters of the Middle Age:—Roger van der Weyden, Dierick Boudts, Hugo van der Goes, Quentin Metsys, and Bernard van Orley. Men, all of them, whose names are intimately associated with Brussels or with Louvain.

In the early days the art of painting, like all the other arts and crafts, was cultivated only in the cloister, and to the end of the eleven hundreds it was submitted almost entirely to the control of the religious orders. Not that the monks were the only artists and the only artisans: attached to all the great abbeys, and even to some of the smaller monasteries, and to more than one collegiate church, were vast bodies of lay craftsmen—so vast that their numbers were often reckoned by hundreds, sometimes by thousands, as we have documentary evidence to show: these men lived under the protection of the monks, had received their instruction at their hands, worked for them and with them, on the monastic domain, and also, but under strict regulations, for outsiders as well. Presently a change came, brought about by the rise of the cities: the monastery then ceased to be the only place where art could be cultivated in peace, and a vast immigration of artists to these new havens of refuge was the consequence. The new-comers, too feeble to stand alone, and not at first sufficiently numerous to be able to form distinct corporations, solved the difficulty by affiliating themselves to existing trade companies, sculptors joining hands with masons, and painters with glaziers and saddlers. A few abbeys here and there continued for a while to maintain their art schools and their lay art-workers, but their numbers gradually diminished, and by the close of the twelve hundreds there were no lay craftsmen of any kind outside the city walls. By this time the city artists were sufficiently numerous to be able to combine in distinct corporations. The first institution of this kind of which we have any record was the Guild of Saint Luke at Ghent, which was founded by the art-workers of that city as early as 1337; four years later the painters of Tournai followed their example; the guild of Saint Luke, at Louvain, was founded before 1350, that of Bruges in 1351, of Antwerp in 1382, and by the opening of the fourteen hundreds almost every city in the Netherlands possessed its painters' guild.

In no town where a guild was established was any outside painter suffered to ply his craft for money, and no man could become a member of the local guild unless he were a burgher of the town by right of birth or of purchase. If a youth aspired to become a painter, the first step was to enroll his name as a companion or probationer in the register of the guild of the town in which he intended to practise. He was then required to serve an apprenticeship under some master painter approved by the guild, who was responsible not only for his technical instruction but also for his fidelity to his civil and his religious duties. During this time he lived with his master, and was bound to serve and obey him, and the latter in his turn was bound to thoroughly instruct him in all that concerned his craft. Nor was this all, when he had received his indentures he had to serve as a journeyman under some qualified master-painter, but not necessarily a member of the guild which he himself proposed to join. When the time of his probation had expired—it seems to have varied from town to town—he presented himself before the heads of the guild, and brought with him a picture which he himself had painted. If it came up to the required standard of excellence, and if, after examining him, they were satisfied of his technical knowledge and skill, he solemnly declared that he would obey the rules of the guild, promised before God that his work should be good, honest, genuine, the best of which he was capable, paid the prescribed fees, and, without more ado, was enrolled in the books of the guild as an effective member. But though he was now called a free master, had the right to set up for himself, to vote at the annual election of the chiefs of the guild, and was himself eligible for office, he was still submitted to the control of his association: the Dean and Juries could search his workshop when they would, and without warning, at any hour of the day or night, and if they discovered there any painting materials of inferior quality they had the right not only to seize and confiscate them, but to inflict on their owner some penalty commensurate with

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the offence; and if any dispute arose between a painter and his patron, the matter was brought before the Dean and Juries of the guild, and the city magistrates were bound to enforce their decision.

The art associations of the Low Countries were most powerful during the latter half of the fourteen hundreds, precisely the period when Flemish art attained the zenith of its magnificence. They were united to one another by ties of the closest friendship: members of one guild never had any difficulty in obtaining admission to another, and some painters seem to have belonged to several guilds at the same time. From the middle of the fourteen hundreds onwards, delegates from all the painters' guilds in the Netherlands were wont to meet together every three years in some town or other, where they spent several days discussing topics of common interest, comparing notes, and communicating to one another any new professional discoveries that had been made: hence the remarkable uniformity in the technique of all the Flemish pictures of the period which have come down to us. Such were the institutions which produced some of the greatest painters whom the world has ever seen. They never considered themselves, and were never considered, superior to other craftsmen, but in those days, be it borne in mind, every craftsman was an artist.

Roger van der Weyden

Roger van der Weyden was born at Tournai in the year 1400; he was apprenticed to the Tournai painter, Robert Campin, on the 5th of March 1426, and admitted a free master of the Guild of Saint Luke in that city on the 1st of August 1432.

The above facts are established by local contemporary documents, which are undoubtedly genuine, but though the archives of Tournai have been searched through and through, with a view to finding a possible ancestor for Roger van der Weyden, only this much has as yet been discovered concerning his parentage—that his father's Christian name was Henry (sic), and that he died before the year 1435. We learn, however, from some entries in the town accounts of Louvain that one Henrich van der Wyden was living in that city in 1424, and that he was a sculptor by trade. Was this man Roger's father?

It is not absolutely certain, but there is good reason to believe that before he was a painter Roger himself handled the chisel. This is in itself significant; and though it seems at first sight improbable that a citizen of Louvain should have been the father of a son born at Tournai, when we remember that citizen's calling, and that the sculptors of Tournai were in those days famous throughout Europe, the difficulty disappears. Henrich, we may be very sure, would have made frequent visits to Tournai on account of his professional pursuits; nor is it in the least unlikely that upon one of these occasions he should have been accompanied by his wife, or that during the sojourn there she should have given birth to a son.

Be these things as they may, we know that the great Brussels painter was sometimes called Roger van der Weyden, and sometimes Rogier de la Pasture, and this is in itself prima facie evidence that his family was of Flemish origin. The translation of Flemish names into French or Latin was common enough in the Middle Age, the inverse exceedingly rare.

Roger was married before 1435 to Ysabel Goffart, a lady of Brussels, and it was perhaps on her account that he left his native town: we know that he and his wife were settled in Brussels in 1435. He seems

to have rapidly made a reputation, for the following year he was named by the city fathers Portraiteur de la Ville. Soon he was busy illuminating the sculptured tomb which Philippe l'AsseurÉ had erected in memory of Duchess Jeanne in the Carmelite Church, and painting those four panel pictures for the Justice Chamber of the Town Hall, which created so great a sensation, says Albert DÜrer, that the whole world came to see them, and which, alas, have long since disappeared.

We know very little of Roger's life between 1436 and 1450, but it is certain that during this time he worked not only for the town of Brussels, but also for various convents and corporations, and for private individuals as well. In 1443 he was commissioned by Willem Edelheere and his wife, AdelaÏde Cappuyns, to decorate their oratory in the Church of Saint Peter at Louvain; and the triptych—a 'Descent from the Cross,' with portraits of Edelheere and his wife and their patron saints—which still adorns this chapel, is said to be Roger's work. Indeed, according to M. van Even, the archivist of Louvain, we have here the only painting in Belgium which is certainly Roger's work. Its authenticity, however, is disputed, and it has been much spoiled by restoration.

One at least of Van der Weyden's pictures of this period has come down to us—the 'Descent from the Cross' which he painted in 1440 for the Louvain Confraternity of the Grand Serment, and which is now at Madrid. The 'Weeping Woman' (No. 56) of the Brussels Gallery is an ancient copy, or perhaps a study by the master himself, of one of the heads in this picture. The next thing we know of Roger van der Weyden is that in 1450 he made a pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee of that year, and we know, too, something of the incidents of this journey. He sojourned, amongst other places, at Ferrara and at Florence, and wherever he went he was welcomed and fÊted not only by the members of his own craft, but also by the Sovereigns of the cities he visited. At Ferrara he must have worked for Lionel d'Este, for on his return we find him receiving from that prince 20 golden ducats in part payment for certe depicture executed in his palace there; and at Florence he painted a triptych for Cosmo Medici—the 'Madonna and Child, surrounded by Saints,' now in the StÄdel Museum at Frankfort.

In each of these cities, then, he must have remained a considerable time. He does not seem to have practised his art in Rome. Perhaps his stay there was a short one, and that his time was fully occupied by sight-seeingsightseeing and devotion. That he fully appreciated the art treasures of the Eternal City there can be no doubt, and we know that he was enraptured with the Lateran pictures of Gentile da Fabriano, whom he pronounced to be the first painter in Italy.

On his return to Brussels, Roger van der Weyden set to work with renewed vigour. We still possess three of the pictures which he painted after his journey to Italy:—the 'Nativity' triptych, with the portrait of Peter Bladelin, now in the Museum at Berlin; the 'Last Judgment,' which Chancellor Rolin ordered for the HÔtel Dieu at Baune (the authenticity of this picture is disputed); and the 'Adoration of the Magi,' in the Pinakothek at Munich. The last two especially show how profoundly the great Brussels painter was influenced by his pilgrimage to Rome: the composition of the Baune picture is almost the same as that of Andrea Orcagna's 'Last Judgment,' and the main outlines of the Munich picture distinctly recall the 'Adoration' of Gentile da Fabriano.

Of the numerous paintings attributed to Roger van der Weyden, probably not more than five or six are of incontestable authenticity. He certainly painted the 'Descent from the Cross' at Madrid, the 'Nativity' at Berlin, the Medici triptych at Frankfort, and the 'Adoration of the Magi' at Munich. These pictures are universally acknowledged to be his work. Of the rest, most are attributed to him merely on account of the similarity of style to the style of the work which is known to be his, and are without signature or other designation.

There is very little doubt, however, that several of these are genuine Van der Weydens—the 'Seven Sacraments' at Antwerp, for example, and the 'PiÈta' of the Brussels Gallery; but at the same time, when pictures are unsigned and there is no documentary evidence as to their authorship, it is well-nigh impossible to arrive at absolute certainty. Sometimes a pupil is able to so exactly acquire his master's manner that the greatest experts are thereby deceived. It was so in the case of the famous Sforza picture, formerly in the Zambeccari Collection at Bologna, and now in the Brussels Gallery (No. 31). This beautiful picture—a 'Calvary,' with portraits of Francesco Sforza, his wife Bianca Visconti and their young son Galeazzo—was attributed by some experts to Memling, and it was thus ascribed in the official catalogue of the Brussels Gallery. There were others, no less competent, who were convinced that it was Roger's work; it dated, no doubt, they said, from the time of his sojourn in Italy. Mr. Weale, however, was quite sure that neither of these artists had painted it, and, thanks to his recent research, we now know the true story of the picture. The critics who said that it was in Van der Weyden's style were quite right, but it was not painted by the master himself, but by his pupil, Zanetto Bugatto, of Milan. The Duchess of Milan, it seems, had seen some of Roger's pictures, and was so charmed by them that she requested him to paint her portrait. He, for some reason or other, being unable at the time to leave home, was compelled to decline the commission, and the Duchess sent the young Milanese painter, Zanetto Bugatto, to Brussels in order that he might study with Roger, and thus acquire his style. This was in the year 1460. Bugatto remained in Brussels three years, and on his return to his native town he painted the picture in question.

There is a tradition, which does not seem to be well founded, that Roger van der Weyden was at one time the pupil of John van Eyck. If this were so, he was certainly not much influenced by his master's manner of painting. John delighted in serene immobility, Roger in tragic action. His tall, wan, emaciated figures always live and feel; and though he could, when he would, depict tranquillity, and his portraits are as calm and collected as any of those which were painted by John van Eyck, unlike Van Eyck's, they are almost always ascetic-looking, and very often sad. He seems to have been unable to appreciate the beauty of health and gladness.

Guicciardini says that Memling was Roger's pupil, but there is no documentary evidence to show that such was the case. We know next to nothing of the first days of the great Bruges painter, but his earlier pictures distinctly recall the pictures of Van der Weyden; and if he were not his pupil, he must have certainly studied his work.

Roger van der Weyden died at Brussels on the 18th of June 1464. He left several children. One of them, Peter, followed his father's calling; another, Corneille, after having made his studies at the University of Louvain, became a monk in the Carthusian Priory which the burghers of Brussels had recently founded at Scheut, by Anderlecht.

Dierick Boudts

Dierick Boudts was born a few years later than Van der Weyden; the exact date of his birth is unknown, but it cannot have been much before 1420. He was a native of Haarlem, where at this time there was a flourishing school of painters noted for their beautiful landscape backgrounds, and for the care with which they executed their drapery. His father, who was also named Dierick, was one of them, and it was doubtless in his workshop that young Dierick Boudts received his artistic education.

For some reason or other, about the year 1445, he migrated to Louvain, where he soon found a wife in the person of Catherine van der Bruggen, the daughter of a well-to-do burgher family, who presently gave him three girls, who became nuns; two boys, Dierick and Albert, who followed their father's calling, and a large house in the Rue des RÉcollets—site now occupied by the Jesuit Church—which she inherited at the death of her parents (December 17, 1460). Here Dierick and his family took up their abode, and here it was that he painted his four most famous pictures—'The Last Supper' and 'The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus' at Saint Peter's, Louvain, and 'The Iniquitous Sentence of Otho' and 'Otho repairing his Injustice' in the Brussels Gallery.

Dierick was commissioned to paint the first two in 1464 by the rich confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament of Louvain, for Saint Peter's, where the brethren of the confraternity had two altars; the pictures were finished in 1468, and the quittance which the artist gave for the money he received for them is still in existence; and note, he signs his name not Dirk nor Thiery, as modern writers often style him, but Dierick Boudts. The Saint Erasmus altar-piece is a triptych; the central panel shows the martyrdom scene, the Gospel wing Saint Jerome and the Epistle wing an abbot, perhaps Saint Bernard. All three panels are still at Saint Peter's. The other altar-piece also had originally wings; on these were painted the First Celebration of the Passover, Elijah fed by Ravens, the Meeting of Abraham and Melchisedek, and the Israelites gathering Manna: the first two are now in the Berlin Gallery, and the others in the Pinakothek at Munich. The subject of the central panel is the Last Supper, and it still adorns the church for which it was painted.

The execution of these important works made Dierick's name famous. Hardly were they completed when the city fathers bestowed on him the honorary title of Portraiteur de la Ville, and commissioned him to paint for the Town Hall a triptych representing the Last Judgment, and four great panel paintings to be hung in the Justice Chamber, for the whole of which they agreed to pay him 500 florins. The triptych was finished in 1472; it has unhappily disappeared. Two years previously he had set to work on the first of the four panels, and shortly afterwards he received a visit from the city magistrates, who were so pleased with what he had done that they made him a present of wine of the value of 96 placken. The next thing we know of Dierick Boudts is that he lost his wife in 1472 or thereabout, and that shortly afterwards he married Elizabeth van Voshem, who was the widow of a rich butcher, and, as we have already seen, the sister-in-law of the glass painter Rombold Kelderman. By this lady he had no offspring, his union with her was not a long one. In the early spring of 1475 he seems to have been in enfeebled health, for on the 18th of April he chose the place in which he wished to be buried—beside his first wife, in the Church of the RÉcollets, and on the same day he made his will, which is still preserved. He left to Elisabeth Voshen all his real property, all his outstanding debts, and all his completed pictures; to each of his three daughters a trifling monthly allowance; and to his two sons a silver cup—the only thing, he says, which he himself had inherited from his father—the implements of his craft, and all his unfinished pictures, and before the summer was out he had gone the way of all flesh. Only two of the Town Hall paintings were completed. Dierick, indeed, had not had time even to begin the others, and presently the question arose, how much of the 500 florins was due to his executors? Whether there was any dispute about the matter we do not know, but it would seem that such was the case, for three years had elapsed before the account was settled, and at last the city fathers had had recourse to expert advice. We learn from the town accounts of 1478 that the sum of 376 florins 36 placken was in that year paid to Dierick's sons, and that this amount was the value of the pictures as estimated by 'the most notable painter in this land—to wit, he who was born in the city of Ghent, and now resideth in the Rooden Clooster, in Zuenien'—without doubt Hugo van der Goes, who had donned the cowl at Rouge CloÎtre two years before; and we learn, too, from the same source, that this man, during his sojourn in Louvain, lodged at the sign of The Angel, and that the city magistrates offered him a pot of Rhine wine.

The pictures in question were duly hung in the Justice Chamber, and they remained there till 1827, when they were sold to the King of the Netherlands for 10,000 florins. In 1861 they were repurchased by the Belgian Government for 28,000 francs, and placed in the Brussels Gallery, where they still remain (Nos. 3C and 3D).

These two pictures and the pictures above men tioned of Saint Peter's, of Munich, of Berlin, are, of all the works attributed to Dierick Boudts, the only ones whose authenticity is incontestable. Some of the rest are most probably genuine, more, perhaps, than in the case of pictures attributed to Van der Weyden, for Boudts had a peculiar style of his own, which is more distinctive than Roger's.

Several of the pictures formerly attributed to Dierick Boudts are now generally believed to be the work of his son Albert, notably the 'Last Supper,' in the Brussels Gallery (No. 3F). As for Dierick Boudts the younger, no picture painted by him has as yet been identified. His name appears again and again in the town accounts of his native city in connection with fines for brawling, he was born in 1448, and died before 1491, and this is all that we know of him.

Hugo van der Goes

Hugo van der Goes was probably a native of Ghent, and if, as Van Mander says, he was a pupil of John van Eyck, who died in 1441, he must have been born somewhere about the year 1420. Be this as it may, his work bears witness that he was more deeply impressed by the great Bruges master than any other of the Flemish primitives. He was certainly at Ghent in 1465, and henceforth this town was his home until 1476, when, following the example of his brother, the only one of his kinsmen of whom we have any knowledge, he became a monk of Rouge-CloÎtre, near Brussels.

Why this sudden flight from the world? Grief, suggests Alphonse Wauters,40 at the loss of a wife. It is a mere conjecture; we do not even know for certain that Hugo was ever married. Van Mander tells how, when he was still a vry gheselle—that is, a bachelor—hence, notes Wauters, it follows that he presently ceased to be such—he painted on a wall, over a chimney-piece in her father's house at Ghent, the portrait of the woman he loved, in the guise of Abigail coming forth to meet David.

'N'y a-t-il pas lÀ un doux souvenir d'un triomphe remportÉ par l'amour et couronnÉ par l'hymen? L'allÉgorie me semble Évident.' Thus Wauters; and he continues: 'AprÈs avoir aimÉ avec ardeur et avoir obtenu la main de sa maÎtresse, il aura ÉtÉ frappÉ au coeur par la mort de sa compagne et se sera rÉfugiÉ dans la solitude pour y vivre de souvenirs et de regrets.' The story as it stands is a pretty one, but one cannot help remembering that David's Abigail was a rich and perhaps an elderly widow, and that immediately after his marriage with her he took a second wife. Moreover, the assumption that Hugo married the lady whose portrait he painted is a wholly gratuitous one; Van Mander does not even as much as hint that such was the case.

But if we have no certain information as to the motives which inspired the great Ghent painter to don the cowl, we have an authentic and detailed account of his life in the cloister, and of the terrible misfortune which there embittered his last days. It was written by a monk of Rouge-CloÎtre who knew Hugo well, and the manuscript was discovered some fifty years ago by Alphonse Wauters himself. It is a very curious document; and note, the writer makes no mention of Hugo ever having been a married man. And if this had been so, from the nature of his narrative he would have been almost certain to have said something about it.

'In the year of Our Lord 1482 died Brother Hugo, a lay brother professed in this monastery. He was so famous a painter that on this side the mountains, in those days, his like was not to be found. He, and I who write these things, were novices together. At the time of his clothing and during his novitiate, Father Thomas, our prior, allowed him many mundane consolations of a nature to incline him rather to the pomps of this world than to the way of humility and penance; and this was by no means pleasing to some, who said that novices should not be exalted, but, on the contrary, put down. And because he was so excellent a painter, great folk were wont to visit him, and even the most illustrious Archduke Maximilian himself; for they ardently desired to behold his pictures, and Father Thomas allowed him to receive them in the Guest Chamber, and to feast with them there. Some five or six years after his profession it so happened that Brother Hugo made a journey to Cologne along with his brother, Brother Nicholas, an oblate here, and Brother Peter, canon-regular of Trone, then residing in the JÉricho41 at Brussels, and several others. One night, on the way home, as I learned at the time from Brother Nicholas, our Brother Hugo was seized by a strange mental derangement, which caused him to cry out continually that he was damned and condemned to eternal perdition; and he would fain have laid violent hands on himself, and would certainly have done so had he not been, but with difficulty, restrained by the aid of some who were standing by. And thus the last stage of that journey was not a cheerful one. 'Albeit, having obtained assistance, they presently reached Brussels, and forthwith summoned Father Thomas, who, when he had seen Brother Hugo and had heard all that had taken place, suspected that his malady was similar to that which vexed King Saul, and, calling to mind how that monarch had been soothed by David's harping, he caused not a little music to be played in the presence of our brother, and strove also to divert him by various spectacular performances; but in vain: he kept on crying out that he was a son of perdition, and in this sorry plight they brought him to Rouge CloÎtre. The kindness and attention with which the choir brethren watched over him by night and by day, anticipating all his wants and always striving to console him, these things God will never forget. But false reports were spread abroad, and by great folk too, that such was not the case.

'As to the nature of the malady with which Brother Hugo was afflicted, opinion was divided. Some said he was mad, others that he was possessed (he had symptoms of each of these troubles), but throughout his illness he never attempted to injure anyone but himself; and this is not the wont of lunatics nor of men possessed by devils, and therefore what it was, I believe, God only knows.

'Now the trouble of our monk painter (pictoris conversi) may be regarded from two points of view. Let us say, in the first place, that it was natural—a peculiar form of mania; for there are various kinds of madness produced by various causes—improper food, strong drink, worry, grief, fear, too great an application to books, and, in fine, a natural predisposition to the same. So far as concerns emotions, I know for a certain fact that Brother Hugo was greatly troubled as to how he should finish his pictures, for he had so many orders that it was currently said it would take him full nine years to execute them; and also he very often studied a certain Flemish book. As to wine, I fear he indulged too freely, doubtless on account of his friends. These things may gradually have produced the malady with which he was afflicted. But, on the other hand, it may have been brought about by the kind providence of God, who desires that no man should perish, but that all should be brought to repentance.

'Now Brother Hugo, on account of his art, had been greatly exalted in our order, and, of a truth, he had become more famous than if he had remained in the world, and, because he was a man like the rest of us, perchance his heart was puffed up on account of the honours bestowed on him, and the divers visits and the homage which he had received; and that God, in order to save his soul, sent him this humiliating infirmity, by which, of a truth, he was greatly abased. He himself, understanding this when he had recovered his senses, humbled himself exceedingly: of his own free will he left our table and meekly took his meals with the other lay brethren.'

How long a time Hugo lived after he had recovered his reason his biographer does not say, nor does he tell us any of the details of his death or of his burial. After again enlarging on his skill in painting, and after some further notes on the origin of madness and a long theological disquisition, he simply says, 'Sepultus est in nostro atrio, sub divo.' He was buried in our cloister, in the open air.

Though Brother Hugo had been in his lifetime so famous a painter, he was soon forgotten, and Van Mander, who wrote at the beginning of the sixteen hundreds, could not even say when or where he died.

Of his grave, which was probably removed or broken when the Church of Rouge-CloÎtre was rebuilt during the first half of the fifteen hundreds, no relic remains but the text of a doubtful epitaph—

Pictor Hugo van der Goes
humatus hic quiescit
Dolet ars, cum similem
sibi modo nescit.

Of all the works of Hugo van der Goes there is only one whose authenticity has as yet been established—

a beautiful triptych which he painted before 1476 for Thomas Portinari, the agent of the Medici family in Bruges, and which Thomas afterwards presented to the Hospital of Santa-Maria-Nuova, at Florence, where it still remains. Amongst the pictures attributed to him with more or less probability, note in the Municipal Gallery of Bruges La Mort de la Sainte Vierge, which, in the opinion of Mr. Weale, is undoubtedly genuine; and in the MusÉe des Beaux-Arts at Brussels the Sainte Famille (No. 36), which may or may not be his.

Quentin Metsys

Quentin Metsys, the son of old Josse Metsys, the metal worker of Louvain, was born in that city in 1466. Like his elder brother, Josse II., whose acquaintance we have already made, he was a man of many parts. By trade, of course, he was a painter, but he by no means confined himself to this craft; he made designs for wrought iron, and carried them out too—witness the exquisite well cover by the great porch of Antwerp Cathedral. He was also an accomplished musician, busied himself with wood engraving, and dabbled, it is said, with some success in Flemish letters.

It was doubtless as his father's assistant that he learned how to forge iron; and there is a romantic story that before he became a painter he was himself a metal worker by profession, and only relinquished this calling for the sake of the woman he loved, whose father would never consent to her marriage with a smith—a most improbable tale, for in the days of Quentin's youth the craftsman who wielded the hammer was quite as good a man as the craftsman who handled the brush.

Molanus asserts that Quentin Metsys was a pupil of Roger van der Weyden—manifestly an error, for the latter died two years before Quentin was born. It is perfectly possible, however, that he was the pupil of Roger's son, Peter van der Weyden. However this may be, he must have completed his apprenticeship before 1491, for at this time he was already inscribed in the Guild of Saint Luke at Antwerp, and seems to have already made for himself a certain reputation, for when we first hear of him at Antwerp he was married and settled in a house of his own in the Rue des Tanneurs. None of his works, however, of this period have come down to us. The earliest of his authentic pictures which we possess—the 'Burial of Christ,' now in the Antwerp Gallery—was not painted till 1508, and the next—the 'Legend of Saint Anne,' now at Brussels (No. 38)—dates from the following year; it is signed on the third panel, 'Quinte Metsys schreef dit, 1509.' These two grand triptyches are undoubtedly his chefs-d'oeuvre. The first was painted for the Carpenters' Company of Antwerp, the second for the Confraternity of Saint Anne at Louvain. They are remarkable, like all the earlier works of this painter, for the delicacy of their execution, their elaborate detail, their strange luminous tints. Though Quentin's palette was a rich and varied one, his pictures have not the same mellow glow as the pictures of several of his predecessors—of those of Dierick Boudts, for example; and if his figures are less stiff than theirs, they are also less spiritual. He stands, as it were, at the parting of the ways; his creations, indeed, reflect the sublime beauty of Hubert van Eyck, of Memling, of Roger van der Weyden, but at the same time, they seem to foreshadow the voluptuous spendoursplendour of Rubens and of Jacques Jordaens.

Quentin Metsys did not confine himself to sacred subjects. He portrayed also intimate scenes of civil life—merchants in their counting-houses, bankers, money-changers, and so forth. The most famous of

these works is in the Louvre; it was painted in 1519. In this kind of painting, however, he had many imitators, and most of the tableaux de genre attributed to him are not his. He also excelled in portraiture. One of his best patrons for works of this kind was Peter Œgidius, whose likeness he painted several times. One of these Peter presented to Sir Thomas More, along with a likeness of their friend Erasmus, also Quentin's work, and More acknowledged the gift in a set of Latin verses. 'If future ages,' he said 'retain the least taste for the fine arts, if hateful Mars does not triumph over Minerva, what will not be the price of these pictures in days to come.' They are possibly still in existence. The portraits of Erasmus and Œgidius in the Longford Gallery, near Salisbury, formerly attributed to Holbein, are now generally ascribed to Quentin Metsys, and the portrait of Erasmus at Hampton Court, and that of Œgidius at Antwerp, are now also commonly believed to be his work. 'Si ce ne sont pas les originaux,' notes M. A.-J. Wauters, 'ce sont deux excellentes copies du temps.'42

Quentin Metsys was twice married, and he was the father of thirteen children, of whom at least two, John and Corneille, followed his calling, and are represented in the Brussels Gallery. He seems to have been socially inclined, and as he earned a considerable income, and his second wife was rich, notwithstanding his large family he was able to entertain his friends, amongst them Œgidius, Erasmus, More, Albert DÜrer, Holbein, Luke Leyden. He was still a comparatively young man when he died at his own house at Antwerp in 1530. They laid him to rest in the cathedral, hard by the great porch, and a hundred years after his death the city erected a sumptuous monument to his memory, which has long since disappeared. He was the last of the Flemish masters who to the end remained faithful to the traditions of the old national school.

Bernard van Orley

Everard, Lord of Orley, was a knight of Luxembourg, attached to the Court of Duke John IV. of Brabant, or maybe in the service of his brother, Count Philip of Saint-Pol. Like most of his race and class, his pedigree was in all probability much longer than his purse; at all events, he did not think it beneath him to marry middle-class money. Mistress Barbara, the lady of his choice, was a member of an illustrious burgher family famous in the annals of Brussels: she was the near kinswoman, perhaps the daughter, of Alderman Jan Taye, whose acquaintance we have already made, and she gave her hand to the Lord of Orley somewhere about the year 1425. The issue of this marriage was a son, whom his parents christened Jan, and who, when he had reached man's estate, was enrolled in the lignage called Sleuws—that is, of the Lion—the same lignage, it will be remembered, to which Everard T'Serclaes belonged. In due course he married, and with his mother's wealth and privileges, and his father's name and title, doubtless he was held in high esteem by a large circle of friends; but the lasting fame of the house of Van Orley was built on another foundation: it was the result of Jan's intimacy with a lady, name unknown, who was not his wife, and who in the year 1468 presented him with a son—Valentine van Orley, the father of Bernard van Orley, and the first of a long line of painters who throughout no less than six generations practised their art in Brussels. The last of them was John van Orley, who died in 1735.

The register of the Brussels Guild of Saint Luke has disappeared, and thus it is impossible to say who

was Valentine's master. He probably made a reputation early, for when he was only twenty-two years of age he took to himself a wife, one Marguerite van Pynbroeck. The wedding was celebrated at Saint Gudila's on the 13th of May 1490. In 1512 he seems to have received an important order from Antwerp, for in that year he left Brussels for the city on the Scheldt, and was admitted a free master of the local Guild of Saint Luke; and as he received several apprentices during his sojourn there, he must have remained in Antwerp some years. We find him again in Brussels in 1527, and this is all that is at present known of Valentine van Orley, save that he had several sons who were painters, and several daughters whose husbands followed the same calling.

If any of Valentine's pictures have come down to us, they have not as yet been identified. He must have painted a considerable number in the course of his career, and it is not likely that they have all perished. In the churches and convents of Belgium and in the various public and private collections throughout Europe there are a host of Flemish 'primitives' catalogued inconnu. It may well be that amongst them are some of Valentine's works; and note, not a few of these anonymous paintings are quite as beautiful as some of the authentic pictures of the greatest masters of the period. Take, for example, in the Brussels Gallery, the strangely pathetic and gloriously coloured Passion scenes of the triptych of Oultremont (No. 537); or the 'Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian' (No. 3E), attributed to Memling and to Dierick Boudts; or the 'Adoration of the Magi' (No. 20), which John van Eyck, Peter Christus and Gerard David are all said to have painted; or the Saint Gudila triptych, Le Christ pleurÉ par les saintes femmes (No. 40), which some very eminent critics ascribe to Bernard van Orley, and in which others equally eminent find no trace of his style; or the 'Virgin and Child' (No. 21), successively given to Hubert van Eyck, Peter Christus, and Quentin Metsys. In a former edition of his catalogue, Monsieur A. J. Wauters wrote against this picture, 'Magnifique ouvrage de l' École de Bruges.' He would have been on surer ground had he been content with the first two words of this sentence. It is certainly a magnifique ouvrage, and no more and no less can be aptly said of any of the above-mentioned pictures.

But to return to the house of Van Orley. The greatest painter which that house produced—the giant who made pigmies of the rest, was Valentine's second son, Bernard, who, as his parents were only married in the spring of 1490, cannot have been born much before 1493. Of his life before 1515 nothing is certainly known. At this time he was settled in Brussels, and had already made a name, for in 1515 he painted a triptych for the oratory of the Holy Cross in the Church of Saint Walburge at Furnes, for which he received 104 livres parisis (the central panel of this altar-piece is now at Turin); and in 1515 or 1516 he painted the portraits of the children of Duke Philippe le Beau, and also the portrait of his son-in-law, Christian II. of Denmark. These pictures have not come down to us, or at least they have not been identified; but, doubtless, they were all that could be desired, for shortly after their completion Marguerite of Austria, whom Charles Quint on the eve of his departure for Spain had named Regent of the Netherlands, appointed Orley Court painter; and if they were anything like the portrait which he painted two years later of Georges Zelle—now in the Brussels Gallery (No. 42)—they must have been singularly beautiful. This picture is signed and dated 1519.

Orley was now married and living with his wife, Agnes Zeghers, in a house on the Senne, hard by the old Church of Saint GÉry; and Zelle, who was town physician and chief medical attendant to the Hospital of Saint John—an institution which was founded in the twelve hundreds, and which still exists—was his friend and near neighbour. Here there is an unsigned picture, dated August 11, 1520—subject, the 'Death of Our Lady'—which, tradition says, is Van Orley's work. The same year that he painted the portrait of Georges Zelle, Orley was commissioned by the Aumoniers of Antwerp to paint an altar-piece for their chapel in the cathedral there, for which they agreed to pay him 600 florins. This picture is now in the Antwerp Gallery (No. 741 to No. 745)—subject, the 'Resurrection and the Seven Works of Mercy.' It is not signed.

Van Orley was now making a very considerable income, kept good company, and was able to give good dinners. Albert DÜrer, who spent a week at Brussels in the summer of 1520, partook of one of them, and thus writes of it in his journal: 'It was such a magnificent spread that I doubt if Master Bernard was quit of it for ten florins. Several great folk were present, whom Bernard had invited to bear me company; amongst others, the Treasurer of Madame Marguerite (Jean de Marnix, Lord of Toulouse), whose portrait I painted, the Town Treasurer (Alderman Jan Busleyden), and the Grand Master of the Palace.'

It was no doubt owing in great measure to 'Madame Marguerite's' patronage that 'Master Bernard' was able to show such lavish hospitality to his friends, for though his official gages—as Bernard himself informs us—was only un patart par jour qu'est bien petite chose, sundry valuable privileges were attached to the office of Court painter, and the accounts of Treasurer Marnix bear witness that Madame was constantly giving him orders for pictures for which he was always handsomely paid. Though Marnix describes most of them, hardly any of these paintings have as yet been identified. There can be no doubt, however, that one of them at least has come down to us—'un grand tableau exquis sur la vertu de patience,' which Marguerite commissioned Bernard to paint for her favourite minister, Count Antoine de Lalaing. This great triptych is now in the Brussels Gallery (No. 41); it is described in the official catalogue as La Patience et les Epreuves de Job, and its authenticity is beyond question. It is signed in Latin: 'Bernardus—Dorley—Bruxellanus—Faciebat: AºDni MCCCCCXXI IIIIª May,' and in Flemish—'ELX SYNE TYT. Orley 1521,' and monogramed with the initials B.V.O. in two places.

This was not the only commission which Bernard executed for his august mistress in 1521: various sums are entered in the treasury accounts for that year as having been paid to him for various pictures, which are there described at length; and then follows this curious item—'Et dix (piÈces d'or) des quels ma dicte dame a fait don À mon dit MaÎtre Bernard, outre et par dessus les dits achats d'icelles peintures et marchÉ fait avec luy et ce, en faveur d'aucuns services qu'il a faits À icelle dame, dont elle ne veut pas qu'il soit fait ici mention.' What was the mysterious business of which no mention was to be made?

MaÎtre Bernard had evidently succeeded in winning Madame's confidence, but six years later he thought it worth while to run a serious risk of losing it. He was imprudent enough to give hospitality to a certain Lutheran preacher, who had been introduced to him by the King of Denmark, and to suffer this divine to hold forth in his house upon no less than four occasions. Protestantism was at this time making headway in the Netherlands, the Regent was straining every nerve to stem the rising tide of heresy, and the most stringent penalties had been decreed not only against the professors of the new teaching, but against all those who should aid or abet them. It is not surprising, then, that presently the poor Court painter found himself in the clutches of Master Nicholas À Montibus, the inquisitor at Louvain. The situation was an alarming one, and doubtless Bernard thanked his stars when the inquisitor pronounced sentence; he was ordered to aller faire amende honorable À Sainte Gudule, and to pay a fine of 200 florins. He did not even lose his situation. When his old friend died two years afterwards, her successor Marie of Hungary retained him in her service, and on the 12th of January 1534, she commissioned him to paint un beau exquis et puissant tableau de bois de Danemarck pour service sur le grand autel de l' Église du couvent de Brou en Bresse, the church which Marguerite of Austria had built in memory of her husband, Philibert of Savoy, and where her bones lie buried. This picture has come down to us; we know its history, and it is a curious one.

Amongst Marguerite's numerous bequests to the Church of Brou were some beautiful paintings by Bernard van Orley, which Marie was exceedingly loath to part with, and she therefore arranged with her aunt's executors to keep them, and to present to the Church of Brou, by way of compensation, a triptych for the high altar, hence the commission to the Court painter of January 12, 1534; but the beau exquis et puissant tableau, which was the outcome of this arrangement, was not destined to adorn the altar for which it had been ordered. Though Bernard had worked at it eight years, when he died, on the 21st of January 1542, it was still unfinished, and eight years later the canons of Notre-Dame, at Bruges, who were at this time preparing their church for the reception of the relics of Charles the Bold, purchased it from Van Orley's heirs for 286 livres tournois. The three great panels of bois de Danemarck were conveyed to Bruges in as many wagons, and set up behind the high altar in the old Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame, where they still remain, but how much or how little of Van Orley's work is displayed on them is another question: the triptych was completed by the Bruges painter, Marc Geerhaerds, in 1561, and about thirty years later the central panel was entirely repainted and the wings retouched by FranÇois Pourbus. This picture has been removed from its original position, and now hangs on the west wall of the south aisle—subject, scenes from the Passion.

Of Bernard van Orley's signed paintings only four have come down to us:—the Job triptych and the Zelle portrait at Brussels, the Holy Family at Stockholm, signed B. v. Orley, but not dated, and an altar-piece at Vienna, showing the death of Saint Thomas and the election of Saint Mathias, and signed Bernardus van Orley, but not dated. This picture is the central panel of a triptych which was formerly in the Church of Notre-Dame du Sablon; the wings are now in the Brussels Gallery (No. 44A). Open, they represent the Incredulity of Saint Thomas and the Martyrdom of Saint Mathias, and shut, the same saints in grisaille, and six kneeling figures, doubtless the donors. From the fact that four small carpenter's tools are painted on the back of each of the shutters, it is likely enough that this triptych was ordered by or for the Carpenters' Guild—a wealthy corporation intimately connected with the Sablon Church. We know nothing of its history.

The portrait of Georges Zelle is without question Van Orley's masterpiece. In colour, composition, technique, this picture is quite perfect. It was his last effort in the old style, and it gives him the right to an honourable place in the ranks of the great masters of the old national school.

Bernard van Orley died on the 21st of January 1542; he was buried in the Church of Saint GÉry, and though his tomb disappeared when the church was destroyed, a drawing of it has come down to us. It was emblazoned with the arms of the lords of Orley, without a bend sinister.

From S. Rombold's Malines.

Click to view larger image.