Stealing the Mystic Lamb by Noah Charney Read Free Book Online

van Eyck may have traveled to the Holy Land—a theory proposed by several scholars, for which no documentary evidence exists.
    These panels also show van Eyck anticipating a technique made famous by Leonardo da Vinci a generation later. The human eye sees objects and landscapes in the far distance through a haze of atmosphere; therefore what is farthest away appears least clear, as if covered in a sort of translucent gauze. Van Eyck was the first artist to mimic this aerial perspective.
    On the opposite side of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, the two panels on the far bottom left, are the Cristi Milites , “the Knights of Christ,” on the inner left, and the Iusti Iudices , “the Righteous Judges.” While none of the young knights have been identified with historical individuals, the coats of arms on their shields have. The arms of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem are on the shield with a silver cross. The arms of the Order of Saint George, from which the English flag is derived, show a red cross on a white ground. The arms of the Order of Saint Sebastian show a cross and four gold crosslets.

    Panels depicting the Righteous Judges (left) and the Knights of Christ (right). The Righteous Judges panel would be stolen in 1934.
    The banners flutter with an enigmatic phrase, the origin of which is unknown: Deus Fortis Adonay T Sabaot V/Emanuel Ihesus T XPC A.G.L.A. , “Mighty God, T, Lord of Hosts, V/God with us, Jesus, T, Christ, A.G.L.A.” The “AGLA,” also found in the tiles beneath the angelic choir, stands for atta gibbor le’olam Adonai , Hebrew meaning “Thou art strong unto eternity, O Lord of Hosts.” The knights may have had a contemporary resonance, because, in 1430, Philip the Good the Valois Duke
of Burgundy planned—but never carried out—a crusade of his own to the Holy Land.
    The panel on the far left depicts the Righteous Judges, a work that would be stolen in the most bizarre of the many crimes involving the painting and the one still unsolved. Portraits of some key contemporary figures, including van Eyck himself, are thought to be hidden among this throng. There is no contemporary document attesting to this, but if one compares the likeness in Jan’s Portrait in a Red Turban , it seems clear that the man in the dark turban wearing a gold necklace, the only person besides God himself in the entire composition who stares directly out of the painting and at the viewer, is a self-portrait of Jan van Eyck. He would place himself in the background of a number of other paintings, including The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait and Madonna of Chancellor Rolin , always wearing a red turban.
    To the right of van Eyck, wearing an ermine collar and riding a horse that looks out at the viewer, is a likeness of Philip the Good. The rider to van Eyck’s left, wearing an unusual fur hat with the front flap pulled up, is thought to be the artist’s brother, Hubert van Eyck. These portraits were identified in the sixteenth century and first published in the work of a biographer of Renaissance artists, Karel van Mander, in his Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters (1604): “Hubertus sits on the right-hand side of his brother, according to seniority; he looks, compared to his brother, quite old. On his head he wears a strange hat with a raised, turned-back brim at the front of precious fur. Joannes wears a very ingenious hat, something like a turban which hangs down behind.”
    The Vijd Chapel, for which the altarpiece was created, is too small to contain the altarpiece with the wings spread open fully—the width of the chapel is such that the wings can only be opened at an angle. This is an unusual feature, considering the fact that the chapel predates the painting and that van Eyck surely knew the intended location of the altarpiece. Perhaps this was a way of showing off the artist’s skill. The altarpiece, as a work with the grandeur of wall painting but painted on panel, outdid even