6 - The Cleveland St. John the Baptist, Attributed to Petrus Christus, and Philip the Good's Triumphal Entry into Bruges (1440)

Summary

In 1979, the Cleveland Museum of Art acquired a small, well-preserved panel of St. John the Baptist (fig. 1), its composition suggesting that it was once the right wing of a triptych. Temporarily ascribed to the circle of Jan van Eyck, the panel was later (and more precisely) attributed by several critics to Petrus Christus. Principal among these scholars was Maryan Ainsworth, who advocated including such an ascription in the 1994 catalogue for the retrospective of Christus's work to be housed at the Metropolitan Museum in New York; for instance, she noted the work's “similarities in technique and execution” to other paintings by that artist. Ainsworth also dated Cleveland's panel shortly after Christus's 1444 arrival in Bruges, at a time when his work was most Eyckian in character; dendrochronological analysis, undertaken in a symposium accompanying the New York exhibition, affirmed such a date.

Significant aspects of the Cleveland Baptist are reminiscent of Eyckian prototypes. The central figure combines features from the two St. Johns as they appeared on the exterior of Jan and Hubert van Eyck's celebrated polyptych in Ghent (fig. 2). The Cleveland Baptist's pose, bearing, and indicating gesture (referencing the Agnus Dei) derive from his counterpart in Ghent, and his slight turn of the shoulder, cock of the head, and right arm drawn further from the lamb as indicated object seem to come from the Ghent Evangelist's pose as well.