Picture Gallery. BRUSSELS. 12. Route. 81
Simon Thaddseus, and Joseph the Just; behind the balustrade, in the
archway through which a rich landscape is visible, are Joachim, Joseph,
Zebedee, and Alpheeus, the husbands of the four women. 'The heads are
full of life, the garments are richly-coloured and disposed in large masses,
and the whole scene is illuminated with a light like that of a bright day
in spring'. — On the inside of the left wing is an Angel announcing to
Joachim the birth of the Virgin , on the outside, Offerings of Joachim
and Anna on their marriage (with the signature 'Quinte Metsys 1509');
on the right wing are the Death of St. Anne, and the Expulsion of
Joachim from the Tempie on account of his lack of children.
On the side-wall: 28. J. Jost van Calcar, Holy Family; 21.
School of Van Eyck (according to Mr. Weale by Petrus Criftux),
Madonna and Child; 24. Jan Gossart, surnamed Mabuse, Mary
Magdalene washing the feet of Christ ill the house of Simon the
Pharisee, with the Raising of Lazarus on the left wing, and the
Assumption of Mary Magdalene on the right; 57-64. School of
Roger van der Weyden, History of Christ, of little value.
*51, *52. Dieric Bouts, Justice of Otho III.
The subject is the mediaeval tradition that the Emp. Otho beheaded
a nobleman who had been unjustly accused by the Empress, but his inno¬
cence having been proved by his widow submitting to the ordeal of fire,
Otho punished the empress with death. This picture was originally hung
up in the judgment-half of the Hdtel de Ville at Louvain, according
to an ancient custom of exhibiting such scenes as a warning to evil-doers.
*19. Hubert van Eyck, Adam and Jive, two of the wings of
the celebrated Adoration of the Lamb in the church of St. Bavon
at Ghent (see p. 36), ceded by the authorities to government, as
being unsuitable for a church, in return for copies of the six wings
at Berlin.
kIt would be too much to say that Hubert rises to the conception of
an ideal of beauty. The head (of Eve) is over large, the body protrudes,
and the legs are spare, but the mechanism of the limbs and the shape
of the extremities are rendered with truth and delicacy, and there is
much power in the colouring of the flesh. Counterpart to Eve, and once
on the left side of the picture, Adam is equally remarkable for correctness
of proportion and natural realism. Here again the master's science in
optical perspective is conspicuous, and the height of the picture above
the eye is fitly considered'. — Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Earlu Flemish
Painters, 1872. — (Comp. p. xii.)
At the back are figures of the Erythraian Sibyl, with a view of
Ghent, and the Cumsean Sibyl, with an interior, by the Van Eycks.
113. Unknown Master, Christ and the Woman taken in adul¬
tery, with the donors and their patron-saints on the wings (1526);
47. School of B. van Orley, Madonna and Child.
On the end-wall at the back: 152. French School, Edward VI.
of England(?); 69. Flemish School, Descent from the Cross; 76.
Flemish School, Willem van Croy; 145, 146. Maximilian II. and
Anne of Austria as children ; 42. Bernard van Orley, The physician
George de Zelle; 40. Van Orley, Pieta, with portraits of the donors
on the wings, painted before 1522, under Italian influence.
Side Wall: 44. B. van Orley (f), Wings of an altarpiece of 1528
with scenes from the life of St. Anne: Birth of the Virgin and
Rejection of the offering of Joachim (on the back : Marriage of St.
Baedeker's Belgium and Holland. 8th Edit. 6
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