The Just Judges, also called The Righteous Judges, is the lower left panel of the Ghent Altarpiece , painted by Jan van Eyck or his brother Hubert Van Eyck between 1430 and 1432. It is believed that the panel shows portraits of several contemporary figures such as Philip the Good, and possibly the artists Hubert and Jan van Eyck themselves. The panel was stolen in 1934 and has never been found. [1]
The panel was displayed at the Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium, together with the rest of the Ghent Altarpiece, until it was stolen during the night of 10 April 1934, [2] possibly by the Belgian Arsène Goedertier (Lede, 23 December 1876 – Dendermonde, 25 November 1934). [3] The day after the theft the commissioner of the Ghent police, Antoine Luysterborghs, was briefly present at the crime scene before leaving to investigate a theft at a nearby cheese shop. [4]
The panel was removed from the frame, apparently with care, leaving the other panels undamaged. In the empty space was left a note, written in French, with the words, "Taken from Germany by the Treaty of Versaile", a reference to the fact that the altarpiece, having been removed to Berlin by German forces during World War I, had to be returned in accordance with Article 247 of the Treaty of Versailles. On 30 April, the Bishop of Ghent received a ransom demand for one million Belgian francs, to which the Belgian minister refused to agree. A second letter was delivered in May. The Belgian government then commenced negotiations with the thief arguing that since the lost panel was a national treasure, the diocese's ownership interest was subordinate to that of the nation. Correspondence continued through October between the thief and the government, with the exchange of at least 11 letters. [5] In an act of good faith, the ransomer returned one of the panel's two parts (a grisaille painting of St John the Baptist). [4]
On 25 November 1934 the self-proclaimed thief, Arsène Goedertier, revealed on his deathbed to his lawyer that he was the only one who knew where the masterpiece was hidden, and that he would take the secret to his grave. [6] Goedertier told his lawyer, Georges de Vos, that "I alone know where the Mystic Lamb is. The information is in the drawer on the right of my writing table, in an envelope marked 'mutualité.'" De Vos found carbon copies of the ransom notes, and an unsent note that said "[it] rests in a place where neither I, nor anybody else, can take it away without arousing the attention of the public." [4] De Vos only told the police of Goedertier's confession a month later. The police concluded that Goedertier had been the thief. [4]
There is speculation that the presumed thief Goedertier could not have acted alone and that he must have had inside help possibly from one of the four custodians of the cathedral. Several people have claimed to know its whereabouts and extensive searches have been held to locate it including an X-ray of the whole cathedral to a depth of 10 metres (33 ft). The panel has never been recovered [7] and is now believed to have been destroyed.[ citation needed ] To this day, a Ghent police detective remains assigned to the case of the missing panel. [4]
The panel was replaced in 1945 by a copy made by Belgian copyist Jef Van der Veken. Van der Veken used a two centuries old closet shelf as the painting panel. He made the copy of the missing painting on the basis of a copy that Michiel Coxie had produced in the mid-16th century for Philip II of Spain and was kept at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. In order to harmonize his copy with the appearance of the other panels of the Ghent Altarpiece, Van der Veken applied a layer of wax to create a similar patina. Van der Veken subtly indicated that his work was a copy by giving one of the horsemen the facial features of the then Belgian king Leopold III. [8]
The panel plays a prominent symbolic role in the novel The Fall (1956) by Albert Camus. Its protagonist, Jean-Baptiste Clamence, claims to have found the painting in a bar called "Mexico City", and his secret withholding of the painting empowers him, he feels, in his newfound role of "judge-penitent".
The panel can be seen in the television series Arrow (season 3, episode 16), in Ra's al Ghul's lair at the dinner table.
The panel is the centerpiece of the novel "The Omega Factor" by Steve Berry, published July 2022.
Jan van Eyck was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. According to Vasari and other art historians including Ernst Gombrich, he invented oil painting, though most now regard that claim as an oversimplification.
Hubert van Eyck or Huybrecht van Eyck was an Early Netherlandish painter and older brother of Jan van Eyck, as well as Lambert and Margareta, also painters. The absence of any single work that he can clearly be said to have completed continues to make an assessment of his achievement highly uncertain, although for centuries he had the reputation of being an outstanding founding artist of Early Netherlandish painting.
Rogier van der Weyden or Roger de la Pasture was an early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commissioned single and diptych portraits. He was highly successful in his lifetime; his paintings were exported to Italy and Spain, and he received commissions from, amongst others, Philip the Good, Netherlandish nobility, and foreign princes. By the latter half of the 15th century, he had eclipsed Jan van Eyck in popularity. However his fame lasted only until the 17th century, and largely due to changing taste, he was almost totally forgotten by the mid-18th century. His reputation was slowly rebuilt during the following 200 years; today he is known, with Robert Campin and van Eyck, as the third of the three great Early Flemish artists, and widely as the most influential Northern painter of the 15th century.
The Ghent Altarpiece, also called the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, is a very large and complex 15th-century polyptych altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. It was begun around the mid-1420s and completed by 1432, and it is attributed to the Early Netherlandish painters and brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck. The altarpiece is considered a masterpiece of European art and one of the world's treasures, it was "the first major oil painting", and it marked the transition from Middle Age to Renaissance art.
A polyptych is a painting which is divided into sections, or panels. Specifically, a diptych is a two-part work of art; a triptych is a three-part work; a tetraptych or quadriptych has four parts, whereas a polyptych describes any work of art formed of more than one constitutive part.
Art theft, sometimes called artnapping, is the stealing of paintings, sculptures, or other forms of visual art from galleries, museums or other public and private locations. Stolen art is often resold or used by criminals as collateral to secure loans. Only a small percentage of stolen art is recovered—an estimated 10%. Many nations operate police squads to investigate art theft and illegal trade in stolen art and antiquities.
Early Netherlandish painting is the body of work by artists active in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period, once known as the Flemish Primitives. It flourished especially in the cities of Bruges, Ghent, Mechelen, Leuven, Tournai and Brussels, all in present-day Belgium. The period begins approximately with Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck in the 1420s and lasts at least until the death of Gerard David in 1523, although many scholars extend it to the start of the Dutch Revolt in 1566 or 1568–Max J. Friedländer's acclaimed surveys run through Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Early Netherlandish painting coincides with the Early and High Italian Renaissance, but the early period is seen as an independent artistic evolution, separate from the Renaissance humanism that characterised developments in Italy. Beginning in the 1490s, as increasing numbers of Netherlandish and other Northern painters traveled to Italy, Renaissance ideals and painting styles were incorporated into northern painting. As a result, Early Netherlandish painters are often categorised as belonging to both the Northern Renaissance and the Late or International Gothic.
Josephus Maria Van der Veken was a Belgian art restorer, copyist, and art forger who mastered the art of reproducing the works of early Netherlandish painters.
Hugo van der Goes was one of the most significant and original Flemish painters of the late 15th century. Van der Goes was an important painter of altarpieces as well as portraits. He introduced important innovations in painting through his monumental style, use of a specific colour range and individualistic manner of portraiture. From 1483 onwards, the presence of his masterpiece, the Portinari Triptych, in Florence played a role in the development of realism and the use of colour in Italian Renaissance art.
Events from the year 1934 in art.
Stealing the Mystic Lamb: The True Story of the World's Most Coveted Masterpiece is a non-fiction book by art historian Noah Charney. The book was published in 2010 by PublicAffairs. It tells the story of The Ghent Altarpiece, a monumental oil painting by the Flemish master Jan van Eyck, currently on display in the cathedral of Saint Bavo, in the city of Ghent. The work is arguably the most influential painting in history, and it is also the most frequently stolen artwork of all-time. Charney's book tells the story of the artwork and the many crimes and mysteries of which it was the victim since its completion in 1432.
Saint Bavo's Cathedral, also known as Sint-Baafs Cathedral, is a cathedral of the Catholic Church in Ghent, Belgium. The 89-meter-tall Gothic building is the seat of the Diocese of Ghent and is named for Saint Bavo of Ghent. It contains the well-known Ghent Altarpiece.
The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele is a large oil-on-oak panel painting completed around 1434–1436 by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It shows the painting's donor, Joris van der Paele, within an apparition of saints. The Virgin Mary is enthroned at the centre of the semicircular space, which most likely represents a church interior, with the Christ Child on her lap. St. Donatian stands to her right, Saint George—the donor's name saint—to her left. The panel was commissioned by van der Paele as an altarpiece. He was then a wealthy clergyman from Bruges, but elderly and gravely ill, and intended the work as his memorial.
Madonna in the Church is a small oil panel by the early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. Probably executed between c. 1438–1440, it depicts the Virgin Mary holding the Child Jesus in a Gothic cathedral. Mary is presented as Queen of Heaven wearing a jewel-studded crown, cradling a playful child Christ who gazes at her and grips the neckline of her red dress in a manner that recalls the 13th-century Byzantine tradition of the Eleusa icon. Tracery in the arch at the rear of the nave contains wooden carvings depicting episodes from Mary's life, while a faux bois sculpture in a niche shows her holding the child in a similar pose. Erwin Panofsky sees the painting composed as if the main figures in the panel are intended to be the sculptures come to life. In a doorway to the right, two angels sing psalms from a hymn book. Like other Byzantine depictions of the Madonna, van Eyck depicts a monumental Mary, unrealistically large compared to her surroundings. The panel contains closely observed beams of light flooding through the cathedral's windows. It illuminates the interior before culminating in two pools on the floor. The light has symbolic significance, alluding simultaneously to Mary's virginal purity and God's ethereal presence.
The Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych consists of two small painted panels attributed to the Early Netherlandish artist Jan van Eyck, with areas finished by unidentified followers or members of his workshop. This diptych is one of the early Northern Renaissance oil-on-panel masterpieces, renowned for its unusually complex and highly detailed iconography, and for the technical skill evident in its completion. It was executed in a miniature format; the panels are just 56.5 cm (22.2 in) high by 19.7 cm (7.8 in) wide. The diptych was probably commissioned for private devotion.
The Madonna Standing is a small painting by the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden dating from about 1430–1432. It is the left panel of a diptych held in the Kunsthistorisches Museum (KHM), Vienna since 1772. The right panel portrays St. Catherine and is also attributed by the KHM to van der Weyden, but is inferior in quality and generally regarded as by a workshop member.
Elisabeth Dhanens was a Belgian art historian specialising in Early Netherlandish painting. Dhanens studied art history at Ghent University at the Higher Institute of Art, where she earned a Ph.D in 1945. Her dissertation was a monograph on the early-16th century artist Jan van Roome, published in 1948. From 1945 to 1952 Dhanens was a researcher in Brussels at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, where she worked in the documentation laboratory. From 1952 to 1976 she held a position as art inspector in East Flanders's Art Patrimony, where she collected inventories from churches for the government. Based on field work in Italy in the early 1950s she published a monograph about Jean Boulogne in 1956, which earned her an award from the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts and a year later a Fulbright scholarship - allowing her to study in the United States.
The Fountain of Life or The Fountain of Grace and the Triumph of the Church over the Synagogue are names given to an oil on panel painting completed c 1432. For most of its history the painting has been in Spain, latterly in the Museo del Prado which recently featured it in a special exhibition. Stylistically and thematically, the painting is related to the work of Jan van Eyck, but it is unsigned and there have been competing theories as to whether it is by van Eyck himself.
Honoré Jozef Coppieters was a Belgian prelate who became, in 1927, the Bishop of Ghent.
Victor Lagye was a Belgian painter and illustrator best known for his genre paintings and history scenes. He participated in various decorative programs commissioned by the Belgian government. In his later years he was active in art education.
Media related to Just Judges (Ghent Altarpiece) at Wikimedia Commons