The winter of 1431-32 was one of the worst cold-disasters told about from days when historic events were still remembered on parchment, so cold that both the Rhine and the Danube lay frozen from November to Candlemas (February 2) and people and animals froze to death in many places.

The physical cold was, however, not the reason why both Pope Eugenius IV in Rome and the antipope Benedict XIII in Avignon in these days got cold feet. It was the news from Basel, that the leading delegates at the Council there - opened in July 1431 - more and more purposefully supported the idea of once and for all put an end to the conditions with two rivalling unworthy popes. That was to be the first and most important move towards reestablishing the reputation of the secularized Church.

In a split Europe where most of the rulers were more or less associated with one or the other of the two popes, the well-planned synod - with authority to appoint or despose popes - started a wide diplomatic activity between those who were in power. The key person in the conflict was Pope Eugenius, who was accepted by the greater part of the world except France. Among the steps he took in order to consolidate his prestige and position was to send his reliable and experienced negotiater, Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, touring Europe on the official mission to try to negotiate terms of peace in the long war between France, England and Burgundy, which in history is named the Hundred Years War.

The extremely cold winter with possibility to travel a little more comfortably on frozen grounds and rivers should have suited the 56-year-old Albergati fine, as he was poor in health and hardly could be on horseback any more. Early in October 1431 he arrived at the monastery of Hérinnes on his way to Brussels where he had hoped to be able to meet Philip the Good, powerful Duke of Burgundy. Philip - then on his way to Holland - was quickly called back by messengers. He summond rapidly his court for a grand reception of the pope’s nuncio in Brussels on October l8. From here Albergati left for Ghent and arrived there on November 3. He also visited Bruges a few days in December after his return from England and was gloriously received everywhere.

In France, which was Albergati’s next important object, the powergame was extremely complicated. After Henry V of England suddenly and unexpected had died in 1422 he had been followed on the throne as king of England and of France by his not yet one-year-old son of the same name. And his uncle John, Duke of Bedford, had taken control of the government of France. Philip of Burgundy had very soon established a relation to the new governer by marrying off his sister Anne to him.

In the late 1420s the English control of France was rocking to its foundation, certainly as a result of Joan of Arc’s inspiring strategy in favour of Charles VII, who was crowned legitimate king of France in Reims on 17 July 1429. The king’s success in the war continued also after that Joan of Arc had been taken prisoner and finally infamously burnt at the stake on 30 May 1431.

In the winter of 1431-32 it was rumoured in Paris that Philip of Burgundy was to come there together with the pope’s nuncio. But Philip - still unconciled with Charles VII, who as a crown prince had been involved in the murder of Philip’s father John the Fearless - preferred not to go to France. He was not even present, when the infant King Henry VI of England was crowned king of France by the Bishop of Winchester in Paris on 16 December. Some weeks later, on 20 February, Albergati is reported to have arrived in Paris. After having received answers to the pope’s proposals from the delegates of England and France he went on travelling to see other persons in power.

Cardinal Albergati was one of the very few distinguished prelates of that time, who seem to have been more religious than power-seeking. According to what is known about this ascetic cleric he was hardly the sort of man, who wanted a portrait of himself. Nevertheless an excellent portrait painted by Jan van Eyck of a well-groomed ecclesiastical dignitary has been preserved (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), which for a long time has been considered to be a portrait of him, as it is depicted in a seventeenth-century-painting by David Teniers the Younger, and the art-collector Peter Stevens in Antwerp wrote, that in his collection there had been a portrait which Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in Vienna had bought (in 1648), a portrait of ´the Cardinal of the Holy Cross´, that is Albergati, which should have been dated 1438, according to Stevens the same year as the cardinal was to go to Bruges to try to reconcile Philip of Burgundy with the successor to the French throne.

Several scholars have, however, brought forward the argument, that this portrait might picture some other clerical dignitary than Albergati, pointing out e g that the costume is not a correct garment for a cardinal, and that the man in the painting should not be tonsured, although Albergati belonged to the clergy. What Stevens thought he knew about the painting is, however, obviously partially wrong. It was in 1431 and not in 1438, that Albergati negotiated with Philip of Burgundy in Brussels, Ghent and Bruges. When Cardinal Albergati came to Burgundy for a second time the two gentlemen met in Arras, where the well-known peace agreement was signed in 1435. Charles of France was not crown prince in 1438 but since 1429 crowned King Charles VII. It is not likely that Stevens got the year 1438 from the frame, for in Teniers the Younger's painting it doesn't look like the type of frame that we know from some other Van Eyck-portraits. Maybe the painting wasn't originally framed at all. Stevens seems to have remembered correctly only the essentials of the origin of the portrait, that it was painted by Van Eyck and that it pictured the well-known cardinal.

So in spite of the objections it may still be considered, that it is Albergati we see in this realistic little portrait, which is remarkable in Van Eyck's works, because there is a preparatory sketch for it preserved (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden). Colour instructions on this sketch indicate, that it was made on an occasion when time was too short for an oil-painting, but later on it could be made and delivered. Most likely Jan van Eyck was present, when Philip of Burgundy gathered all his court in Brussel on October 18, and it is possible that he was one of those escorting the cardinal to Ghent on November 3. In that case it stands to reason, that he would have demonstrated the work on the not yet finished Ghent Altarpiece for the important visitor.

After having made a sketch on one of the first days of November Van Eyck could have finished the portrait in oil the nearest weeks. He would then have been able to deliver it to Albergati e g early in December in Bruges. The tired old man seen in the sketch might very well be tonsured; the thin tufts of hair on the top of his head may have been sketched on an occasion, when the cardinal sat to Van Eyck for a short while, when the tonsure not necessarily had to be presentable, and the cardinal had no reason to dress up distinguished as a cardinal.

Suppose that the portrait does show Albergati, then it remains to prove the reason why Philip of Burgundy had his court painter make this portrait to a person who normally could not have wanted to get one. We know that Philip made an effort to be courteous to Albergati in all respects. The exquisite little portrait, given as a present, may have formed a part of this effort. What use could the cardinal make of such a portrait? The answer to that question is perhaps also the explanation of Jan van Eyck's invention around 1430 of such small detailed oil-portraits, which other artist later on were to develop into more representative-looking portraits.

Jan van Eyck's supposed Albergati portrait is remarkable as the maybe earliest reasonably dateable new detailed realistic portrait type. It doesn't look like e g earlier portraits of sovereigns, which more emphazise power and authority than likeness. Focusing on likeness this new kind of portrait has forerunners in such drawings and paintings, which since long had been sent between European courts for the use of matrimonial contracting-partners when those interested had not had the opportunity of meeting personally. Van Eyck's talent had newly been used for this purpose as a member of a proposal-delegation in 1428-29 that Philip of Burgundy sent to Portugal and brought home at least one portrait of Princess Isabella, which led to Philip's third marriage.

It is a striking fact that great travellers and diplomats dominate among early detailed and easily portable portraits. Among the earliest known are the three-quarter-profile portraits of the two German officers Peter Stromaier and Johann Habfast, dated 1388, but today only known in replica by an unknown artist from 1506. In Scandinavian history there is an interesting story exemplifying the fact that identity was proved by a portrait. Eric of Pomerania, King of Sweden, Norway and Danmark, was on a pilgrimage to Palestine disguised as a nobleman's valet. But he was threatened by a blackmailer, who said he was going to reveal his deceitful stay in the country to the Sultan by showing a realistic drawing portraying him, a portrait maybe executed at the court of King Sigismund.

One may guess that it was in the years around 1430 that Jan van Eyck realized, that it was possible to supplement the usual documents necessary for identification during travels by adding small detailed easily transportable portraits in oil and in this way created forrunners to the passports of our time. In several portraits from this time, as well as both earlier and later, the portrayed persons carry a document scroll in their hands. The meaning of these scrolls has never been documented. Very often the scroll has been interpreted as a proof of a donation the person in question has given for a safe return. A more unsophisticated explanation may be, that the scrolls sometimes refer to a written proof of the identity of the persons. The scroll in the hand of a young woman on a bust from the fifth or sixth century (The Cloisters, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) is, however, probably symbolizing learning.

The theory that Jan van Eyck's small realistic oil-portraits were painted in order to facilitate the identification of travellers when passing the borders of the many principalities in Europe is strongly supported by the first of Van Eyck's known portraits in which the portrayed has got a roll of parchment in his hand. It is the portrait of a rather young man dated 10 October 1432 (National Gallery, London), on which we see beside the words LEAL SOVVENIR a half Latin, half Greek text, far-fetched interpreted as Tymotheos. It may in fact be the portrait of an aristocratic cleric starting on a diplomatic commission, as I am trying to show in the article Early Netherlandish Portrait Paintings Reconsidered. Among the portraits of Philip of Burgundy there is in the museum of Dijon a replica of a portrait in the style of Van der Weyden, probably from the early 1440s. The duke wears the Order of the Golden Fleece and has got a roll of parchment in his hand, which here rather may indicate a wish to be able to document identity during journeys than a need to document symbolically any of his many charitable deeds.

If it really is Niccolò Albergati that we see in Van Eyck’s excellently painted portrait of an intellectual and pious prelate, then it was a brilliant idea of the usually successfully intriguing Philip of Burgundy - or of his shrewd chancellor Nicolas Rolin - to present the cardinal with this masterpiece to be used by the nuncio on his vast travels in a turbulant world, always reminding him of the friendly and powerful duke.

Copyright © 2001-2007 Knut Andersson. All rights reserved.