What’s different about looking at a painting if we don’t know who it’s by? What opportunities does this open up?
Regular readers know how much I love process and here’s a video which is right up my street, being an inside look at the issues being discussed in the Conservation Studio of the National Gallery in London.
This video is about a fascinating newly acquired altarpiece and what its conservation did (or did not) reveal. National Gallery Curator Emma Capron and Head of Conservation Larry Keith ponder this tantalising painting by an unknown French or Netherlandish artist. Conservator Britta New addresses the structural issues of the panel.
They know that it depicts The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret but beyond that, it is a conundrum for art historians, conservators and us, the art loving general public, to puzzle over.
Here’s how the Gallery describes it:
“The identity of the artist behind this impressive panel is a mystery. In fact, whether the painter was Netherlandish or French is up for debate. The panel’s overall eccentricity and the dramatically foreshortened faces of the saints and angels are reminiscent of the early work of Jan Gossaert. Enthroned in the middle of an open-air chapel, the Virgin and Child are flanked by two music-making angels, the holy king of France Saint Louis, and Saint Margaret. Sumptuously dressed, she rises unharmed from the broken shell of the slobbering dragon that swallowed her.
The painting is full of wildly inventive details. Some are sombre, such as the bare wooden steps that foretell Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross. Others are unusual, such as the mouth harp played by the angel to the left, a sound hardly associated with celestial harmony. Others are even humorous, such as the unruly child showing us his behind on the top right pilaster.
Datable to about 1510, the painting certainly served as an altarpiece, perhaps for the urban priory of Drongen in Ghent, where it was first documented in 1602.”
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