Ince Hall Madonna
The Ince Hall Madonna is a panel painting that has long been attributed to Jan van Eyck because it bears a signature of Jan van Eyck on the picture surface and is dated to the year 1433. In terms of art history, this painting is generally no longer assigned to the work of van Eyck, but to a successor to Jan van Eyck. It is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne , Australia .
The painting shows a Madonna crowned by a magnificent canopy, who holds the Christ Child on her lap, who is leafing through a book. Despite the canopy, the Madonna is not sitting on a throne, but appears to be crouching on the floor. Art history classifies this form of representation as contradicting itself. The canopy refers to the representation of a queen of heaven; the representation of a Madonna crouching on the floor, on the other hand, refers to a Madonna humilitatis . The spatial relationship between the figure of Mary and the Christ child as well as the furniture surrounding them is only vaguely indicated and the structure of the picture lacks the depth that Jan van Eyck was able to give to his Lucca Madonna or Rolin Madonna .
The doubts about the authorship of Jan van Eyck were also confirmed by a closer examination of the pictures; the letter form of the signature does not correspond to the signatures as they correspond to the Madonna of Canon Joris van der Paele or the Triptych of Mary from the Dresden painting collection. The signature is also on the picture surface, while these Madonnas were signed by Jan van Eyck on the frame. As an attempt to explain this, some art historians considered that after the loss of the original signed frame, the signature was subsequently transferred to the picture surface by an unknown painter. This, too, has not been confirmed by a closer examination of the painting: the signature is located directly on the painting surface. Because of the contradictions in the presentation, the painting is no longer considered a true copy of a Jan van Eyck original that has since been lost. Art history today is more of the opinion that a Jan van Eyck successor created a painting in the form of a pasticcio . In doing so, he obviously orientated himself closely to the Lucca Madonna.
literature
- Otto Pächt : Van Eyck. The founders of Dutch painting. Published by Maria Schmidt-Dengler. Prestel, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7913-1033-X , pp. 87-88.
- Jochen Sander (Ed.): Focus on Jan van Eyck: Lucca-Madonna, around 1437/38 (Inv. No. 944). Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main 2006, pp. 37–38.