Dresden Marien Altar
The Dresden Marienaltar is a small-format triptych by Jan van Eyck . The work from 1437, painted with oil on oak, is in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden . When open it shows a Madonna enthroned and when closed it shows an annunciation scene in so-called grisaille painting .
General
The work is 33 cm high, the wings are each 13.5 cm wide and the central image is 27.5 cm. Due to the small format, it should not be a church-used work, but a private devotional picture. Nevertheless, the triptych resembles its great models, this also applies to the painted back of the side wings, which show a fasting motif with the Annunciation. The original frames have been written on. The inventory number of the State Art Collections in Dresden is Gal.-Nr. 799.
Wing panel
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The three panels show the frontal cross-section of a three-aisled church interior. In the middle you can see Mary with the baby Jesus and on the left the kneeling donor together with the archangel Michael . The right panel shows Saint Catherine with her attributes, the wheel, the sword and the book - the important objects around her legend.
The Madonna is enthroned in the middle of a three-aisled basilica and is wrapped in a voluminous red cloak with the baby Jesus on her lap, her throne is where the altar is usually located. A mosaic forms the floor, an oriental carpet is laid out in front of the throne. Colored marble columns separate the Madonna from the other figures depicted on the side wings. According to medieval tradition, Van Eyck placed an oversized Madonna in a nave. One of his earlier depictions of this type is The Madonna in the Church (around 1425, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin ).
A scene of the Annunciation is painted in grisaille as a motif from Lent on the back of the wings. They are trompe-l'oeil representations, painted like real statues in a niche , standing on pedestals, an angel and a statue of Mary facing each other.
Attribution
Until 1696 the work, described in the Jabach Collection, Cologne, was considered to be the work of his brother Hubert van Eyck , then (1754) in Dresden inventory no. II 39 even as a painting by Albrecht Dürer. Since 1846 it has been correctly attributed to Jan van Eyck.
literature
- Antje Maria Neuner: The triptych in early old Dutch painting. Visual language and expressiveness of a form of composition (= European university publications. Series 28: Art history. 242). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1995, ISBN 3-631-49122-0 , pp. 175-189, (at the same time: Saarbrücken, Universität, dissertation, 1994).
- Antje Maria Neuner: The sacrificed child. Iconography and program of the Dresden Marien Altar by Jan van Eyck. In: Yearbook of the State Art Collections Dresden. Vol. 25, 1994/1995, ISSN 0419-733X , pp. 31-43.
- Otto Pächt : Van Eyck. The founders of Dutch painting. Published by Maria Schmidt-Dengler. Prestel, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7913-1033-X .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Michael Viktor Schwarz : Visual Media in the Christian Cult. Case studies from the 13th to 16th centuries. Böhlau, Wien et al. 2002, ISBN 3-205-99324-1 , p. 108.
- ↑ a b Renate Prochno: Competition and their faces in art. Competition, creativity and its effects. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-05-004230-3 , p. 54, footnote 27.
- ↑ skd-online-collection: winged altar. Eyck, Jan van (1390-1441) ( Memento of the original from February 25, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on April 29, 2017
- ^ Günter Brucher : History of the Venetian Painting. Volume 1: From the mosaics in San Marco to the 15th century. Böhlau, Vienna et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-205-77622-2 , p. 298.
- ^ Otto Pächt: Van Eyck. The founders of Dutch painting. 1989.
