![Favorite purchase from my first-ever trip to Commonwealth Books the other day. I’ve wanted to get my hands on more Northern Renaissance material for a while, and this book rules. Beyond the amazingly primitive color-print frontispiece of Jan van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait, the text has such a great conversational tone, e.g., “A ‘Madonna and Child,’ No. 774, is a charming picture usually given to [Dirk] Bouts, and as no one knows for certain who painted it, we may as well consider and enjoy it under his name.”](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lu55ysdeMJ1qafmygo1_400.jpg)
Favorite purchase from my first-ever trip to Commonwealth Books the other day. I’ve wanted to get my hands on more Northern Renaissance material for a while, and this book rules. Beyond the amazingly primitive color-print frontispiece of Jan van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait, the text has such a great conversational tone, e.g., “A ‘Madonna and Child,’ No. 774, is a charming picture usually given to [Dirk] Bouts, and as no one knows for certain who painted it, we may as well consider and enjoy it under his name.”
jan van eyck, the madonna with canon van der paele, detail, c. 1436.
oil on wood, detail width 47 cm.
groeninge museum, bruges.
jan van eyck, ghent altarpiece: adoration of the lamb, detail, c. 1425-29.
oil on wood, detail height 26 cm.
cathedral of st. bavo, ghent.
photo taken the morning of the discovery of the theft of the righteous judges panel from jan van eyck’s ghent altarpiece.