The legacy of Rogier van der Weyden: A pair of altarpiece shutters by the workshop of the Master of the View of St Gudula (c. 1480-1500)

This article aims to illustrate the legacy of Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400-1464) in Brussels through two formerly undocumented altarpiece shutters from the last quarter of the fifteenth century that were auctioned in 2020. An Annunciation is depicted on the reverse of the panels, while the observe shows four scenes of the Passion: the Flagellation of Christ, the Crowning with thorns, the Resurrection of Christ, and the Christ appearing to his mother. The central ‘caisse’ of this domestic retable, which was probably a carved group, is missing. The paintings can be ascribed to an artist working in Brussels, in the workshop of the Master of the View of St Gudula. A similar Passion cycle, that has been recorded on the Paris art market in 1924, can be attributed to the same workshop. In the present altarpiece shutters, the relationship between the Annunciation and Rogier’s oeuvre is particularly straightforward, as the figure of the angel Gabriel appears in a similar form in a painting by one of the master’s pupils. In addition, following a motif introduced by Rogier, the sceptre of Gabriel is connected with ‘tenons’ as if it was a real sculpture. Obvious similarities also appear when comparing the Flagellation and the Crowning with thorns with two drawings by an artist from Rogier’s closest circle. Also, the composition of the Flagellation can be found in the central panel from the Prado’s Triptych of the Redemption, a work that clearly relies on Rogierian models. The works that Max Friedländer attributed to the Master of the View of St Gudula in 1926 and 1939 are characterized by differences in quality of execution and style, what scholars led to assume that the artist must have been surrounded by a workshop of several collaborators. Following the authors, one of them, the same who was responsible for two panels from a cycle of Saint Catherine, can now be convincingly assigned to the present altarpiece shutters.