citizens. A contemporary equivalent of this theory might be to say that the greatest treasure of the city of Boston had been created by a New Yorker. Renders’s theory remains intriguing and plausible. Just because archives have proven that a painter named, approximately, “Hubert” was working in Ghent in the correct century does not mean that Hubert was involved in The Ghent Altarpiece , nor that the inscription is original.
Another scholar, Lotte Brand Philip, wrote in 1971 that the inscription, while original, had in fact been misread. Hubert van Eyck was actually listed as fictor , not pictor . This would mean that Hubert created the sculptural framework for the altarpiece, while Jan did the painting. The deterioration of the inscription, in which certain words are completely obliterated, makes a misread plausible. This remains a possibility championed by a number of scholars, although it is contradicted by one of the aforementioned documents, from March 1426, which mentions an altarpiece for the Church of Saint Saviour that is still in the workshop of “Master Hubrechte the painter,” which would make him a pictor and not a fictor .
To this day, art historians are divided on the authorship of The Ghent Altarpiece . Sit in on lectures by different art historians, and half will teach that the altarpiece is by the van Eyck brothers, and half that it is by Jan van Eyck alone.
Though the existence of an artist called Hubert in early-fifteenth-century Ghent is now beyond doubt, his involvement in The Ghent Altarpiece remains an unsolved mystery. It seems probable that he was commissioned
to paint the altarpiece but died so soon after the commission that none of his work may be seen in the finished painting, which was taken up by his brother Jan, with the blessing of Duke Philip the Good. Unless some new clue rises from the silt, the precise origins of the altarpiece will remain an enigma. And perhaps that is part of its allure? When all of the questions have been answered, we might cease to look. The Ghent Altarpiece proffers many tantalizing questions, supports intriguing answers, yet refuses to yield up definitive solutions. It haunts us still, as it has haunted and beckoned six hundred years of art lovers and thieves—all the more powerful because of the unparted mists that remain around it.
A work of art rarely has intrinsic material value—so much painting is just wood and linen and pigment. It is the way these materials are used, and even more so the story of their past and what they have meant to people and nations, that imparts value to humble ingredients. Rarely discussed by scholars, the history of art crime is a human psychological drama, a tug-of-war of ownership woven with ideological, religious, political, and social motivations that are provoked or embodied by the art in a way that no other inanimate object sustains. And The Ghent Altarpiece , with its biography of twists and turns, is an ideal lens through which to examine this phenomenon.
Now let us turn to the story of the painting as a physical object: coveted, desired, reviled, damaged, nearly destroyed, stolen, smuggled, and recovered, only to be stolen again. We shall see how the masterwork that began as a point of pride for the community in which it was housed, the treasure of the city of Ghent, evolved into the icon of the country of Belgium, and became ultimately a symbol for the preservation of civilization against evil.
CHAPTER THREE
The Burning of the Lamb
T he first century of The Ghent Altarpiece ’s existence was the only period in which it was unmolested. Beyond the Hubert van Eyck mystery, which many scholars still feel was the result of an early-sixteenth-century forgery, and the damage done by cleaning that resulted in the loss of the predella, The Lamb ’s first 140 years were quiet. Then, in 1566, The Lamb became the victim of an unprecedented and unparalleled string of crimes. It began as the whipping boy for a series of
Another scholar, Lotte Brand Philip, wrote in 1971 that the inscription, while original, had in fact been misread. Hubert van Eyck was actually listed as fictor , not pictor . This would mean that Hubert created the sculptural framework for the altarpiece, while Jan did the painting. The deterioration of the inscription, in which certain words are completely obliterated, makes a misread plausible. This remains a possibility championed by a number of scholars, although it is contradicted by one of the aforementioned documents, from March 1426, which mentions an altarpiece for the Church of Saint Saviour that is still in the workshop of “Master Hubrechte the painter,” which would make him a pictor and not a fictor .
To this day, art historians are divided on the authorship of The Ghent Altarpiece . Sit in on lectures by different art historians, and half will teach that the altarpiece is by the van Eyck brothers, and half that it is by Jan van Eyck alone.
Though the existence of an artist called Hubert in early-fifteenth-century Ghent is now beyond doubt, his involvement in The Ghent Altarpiece remains an unsolved mystery. It seems probable that he was commissioned
to paint the altarpiece but died so soon after the commission that none of his work may be seen in the finished painting, which was taken up by his brother Jan, with the blessing of Duke Philip the Good. Unless some new clue rises from the silt, the precise origins of the altarpiece will remain an enigma. And perhaps that is part of its allure? When all of the questions have been answered, we might cease to look. The Ghent Altarpiece proffers many tantalizing questions, supports intriguing answers, yet refuses to yield up definitive solutions. It haunts us still, as it has haunted and beckoned six hundred years of art lovers and thieves—all the more powerful because of the unparted mists that remain around it.
A work of art rarely has intrinsic material value—so much painting is just wood and linen and pigment. It is the way these materials are used, and even more so the story of their past and what they have meant to people and nations, that imparts value to humble ingredients. Rarely discussed by scholars, the history of art crime is a human psychological drama, a tug-of-war of ownership woven with ideological, religious, political, and social motivations that are provoked or embodied by the art in a way that no other inanimate object sustains. And The Ghent Altarpiece , with its biography of twists and turns, is an ideal lens through which to examine this phenomenon.
Now let us turn to the story of the painting as a physical object: coveted, desired, reviled, damaged, nearly destroyed, stolen, smuggled, and recovered, only to be stolen again. We shall see how the masterwork that began as a point of pride for the community in which it was housed, the treasure of the city of Ghent, evolved into the icon of the country of Belgium, and became ultimately a symbol for the preservation of civilization against evil.
CHAPTER THREE
The Burning of the Lamb
T he first century of The Ghent Altarpiece ’s existence was the only period in which it was unmolested. Beyond the Hubert van Eyck mystery, which many scholars still feel was the result of an early-sixteenth-century forgery, and the damage done by cleaning that resulted in the loss of the predella, The Lamb ’s first 140 years were quiet. Then, in 1566, The Lamb became the victim of an unprecedented and unparalleled string of crimes. It began as the whipping boy for a series of
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