page_title: Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele
section_title: Provenance and influence
hierarchical_section_title: Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele / Provenance and influence
context_page_description: The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele is a large oil-on-oak panel painting completed around 1434–36 by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It shows the painting's donor, Joris van der Paele, within an apparition of saints. The Virgin Mary is enthroned at the centre of the semicircular space, which most likely represents a church interior, with the Christ Child on her lap. St. Donatian stands to her right, Saint George — the donor's name saint — to her left. The panel was commissioned by van der Paele as an altarpiece. He was then a wealthy clergyman from Bruges, but elderly and gravely ill, and intended the work as his memorial.
  The saints are identifiable from Latin inscriptions lining the borders of the imitation bronze frame, which is original. Van der Paele is identifiable from historical records. He is dressed in the finery of a medieval canon, including white surplice, as he piously reads from a book of hours. He is presented to Mary by Saint George, his name saint, who holds aloft his metal helmet in respect. Saint Donatian, dressed in brightly coloured vestments, stands to the left.
context_section_description: The painting remained in the church for which it was painted until after the French Revolution, and was one of the well-known artistic attractions of Bruges for visitors.  It was presumably one of the paintings in the church praised by Albrecht Dürer in his diary in 1521.  In 1547 Mary of Hungary, Governess of the Spanish Netherlands, wanted to buy it for her collection, but the chapter politely refused, saying this would create "moans, protests, uproar and complaints" from the people.  During a spate of Calvinist mob iconoclasm in 1578 it was moved to a private house for safety, and by 1600 it had been given a setting with side wings and now formed the main altarpiece, replacing a destroyed metalwork retable of the 14th century.  But by perhaps 1628 it was in the sacristy and from 1643 above a new side altar.
  The painting was acquired, along with many other Netherlandish and Flemish works, by the Musée du Louvre in 1794, during the plundering of the estates of aristocrats in the years of the French revolutionary army's occupation of the Southern Netherlands. Other works acquired in this way include the centre panels of van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece, Hans Memling's Moreel Triptych and Gerard David's Judgement of Cambyses. Many, including the van der Paele panel, were returned to Bruges in 1816. The return of the panel became entangled in a dispute over control and ownership between the French and Dutch-speaking officials of Bruges, but it was entrusted to the Flemish Academy of Bruges. In 1855 it became part of the municipal collections, at first at the Bogaerdeschool Museum, until it became part of the collection of the Groeningemuseum in 1930.
  The painting was widely influential in the 15th and 16th centuries. The set piece of Van Eyck's enthroned Virgin, with a distracted Child on her lap was both widely copied, and became a standard for the following 150 years. There are numerous surviving contemporary close and free copies, the most significant of which is the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp. Adriaen Isenbrandt included van der Paele's head in his Mass of St Gregory of 1550.
  Both panel and frame are in good condition. That the panel retains its original frame makes it especially interesting to art historians, apart from its aesthetic qualities. The canvas has suffered little paint loss, board cracking, or other damage, and has been cleaned several times since it came into the possession of the Groeningemuseum.
caption: Adriaen Isenbrandt, Mass of St Gregory, 1550, Museo del Prado
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