Two portraits in the National Gallery of London, of a man in his late forties and of a woman a few years younger, have for a long time been considered to be crucial for the understanding of early Netherlandish portrait painting. They have normally been interpreted as being painted by Robert Campin, a master in Tournai, who in actual fact may be that brother of Jan van Eyck’s, who erroneously has been thought to have died already in 1426. (See the article Hubert van Eyck, Robert Campin and the Ghent Altarpiece. Misunderstandings and Falsifications.)

Hardly anyone today would be prepared to question that Campin is the painter of some astonishingly realistic works in Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt am Main, which were originally ascribed to an anonymous Master of Flémalle. The faces in the paintings St Veronica holding the Vernicle, the Virgin and Child and the Crucified Thief with two Onlookers show that Campin had the qualities of an outstanding portrait painter, a fact that has inspired scholars to try to find stylistic evidence to ascribe the two paintings in the National Gallery to him, although the man and the woman portrayed were then still unidentified and no document at all has been found to support such a hypothesis.

Both paintings in the National Gallery are painted with excellent skill showing that the two persons portrayed had the means to commission an artist of the highest quality. The man is characterized as very serious and conscious of his importance. An air of concentrated intelligence emanates from him, at the same time as he seems to be used to perform in public. In other words, there is some likelihood that he might be an intellectual in a definite career. On his head he wears an exclusively arranged red turban, as similar to that on Jan van Eyck’s A Man with a Turban from 1433 in the National Gallery of London, that one is prepared to suppose that it might even be the very same turban, lent from one family member to another. In any case it makes a connection probable to the circle of Jan van Eyck, the early master of portrait painting in north-western Europe.

It is a difficulty to know how much may be concluded from a portrait even if it is painted by a first-rate master. Already by his contemporaries, Jan van Eyck was considered to be an incomparable master. None the less it has often been disputed how many of a number of preserved unsigned paintings in his style have really been painted by him, a discussion that is not only due to partial restaurations and the results of poor preservation. A Man with a Turban - most often considered a self-portrait - shows a resolute man in his fifties, hardly able to conceal a glance of distrust in his searching eyes. But if we accept that Jan van Eyck portrayed persons with nearly incredible exactness, not least as far as age is concerned, it is for this very reason hardly possible to believe that it is a self-portrait, since this man seems to be older that Jan van Eyck probably was in the year the painting was signed.

For psychological reasons, too, the theory of a self-portrait seems unlikely. The loftiness of this man has nothing of the dignity of the ingenious artist we know so well from several preserved excellent paintings. What we see in this essentially flattering portrait is a self-confident man with resolutely closed mouth. He is looking in a friendly and familiar way directly at the spectator, perhaps the artist’s way of portraying family members. But the artist has added a slight but unmistakable air of irony, something that would be impossible in a self-portrait. We rather see a man well pleased with his own shrewdness, like a successful but tough businessman. Perhaps this portrait is another invention of Jan van Eyck’s, the first in a long row of fictitious portraits painted in later years, glorifying powerful but not always likeable men. This would be well in line with the suggestion to identify the person in the portrait as the artist’s supposed father-in-law, a suggestion based on the apparent likeness between this old man and the portrait of the artist’s wife, signed and dated in 1439. Jan van Eyck is supposed to have married exactly in 1433.

Another famous portrait by Jan van Eyck in the National Gallery of London, the so-called Tymotheos, is perhaps the most enigmatic of all; several painted details on it have up to now defied reasonable interpretation. This man is of a quite different type than the resolute A Man with a Turban. He is hardly forty years, distinguished but not very expensively dressed, and he has the appearance of a learned but delicate ecclesiastic. The idea that the portrait of this frail and irresolute man should be a self-portrait of the determined and inventive court painter Jan van Eyck in the middle of his career, presupposes a suppression of normal psychological and aesthetic sensibility. Nevertheless this idea has been tried by presenting an intricate chain of ownerships with only a few missing links.

In spite of intensive research a likely name for this intellectual-looking man has never been suggested, although the portrait has a big inscription on a rather dominating parapet: LEAL SOVVENIR. This makes it evident that the man must have been one of the artist’s very near acquaintances. So an identification of him would be of special importance for the knowledge of the hitherto unknown circles where Jan van Eyck was educated and from which he may have got inspiration for his paintings. One very unlikely suggestion has been presented: the man should be a musician at the court of Philip the Good, fancifully interpreting the shrewd Greek inscription on the first line of the parapet - often read as TYM.OTHEOS - as alluding to a famous musician Tymotheos in classical antiquity, now forgotten. It has also been suggested that the Greek words might mean ´I fear God´.

This is the earliest known portrait by Jan van Eyck that is dated. On the third line on the parapet it has the not very clearly visible text, formulated in legal language Actu(m) an(n)o d(omi)ni 1432. 10. die octobris. a ioh(anne) de Eyck, as if commemorating in a sepulchral way someone whose death has struck the artist very hard, such as the death of a family member or an old friend, someone who like the artist was one of the few north of the Alps that at this time had some knowledge of Greek.

The date, important for obvious reasons, is not likely to refer to the time when the man died, as the portrait wears all the signs of being painted in situ. It must have required several sittings and may therefore be based on another portrait painted in the person’s lifetime. A very curious detail is a deep crack in the parapet on which the three lines are written. This crack is painted in a very illusory way so as to suggest that the parapet is about to break. It has been suggested that this crack should simply refer to the fragility of life, but this does not seem very convincing, as Jan van Eyck is remembered a very advanced specialist of symbolic allusions. It is tempting to find a less conventional explanation, which should also include a reason why Philip the Good was willing to pay his painter-servant for the use of time and material.

Duke Philip was a rational and efficient ruler, who had practical reasons for most of what he did. He constantly sent delegations and messengers to courts all over Europe, to the two popes, and to others that he wanted to influence or on whom he wanted to spy. His itinerant agents must have needed to identify themselves when passing through territories held by possibly belligerent rulers. This may have been the reason why his court painter Jan van Eyck created the type of small easily transportable portraits in oil against a neutral background, and the portrait of the so-called Tymotheos seems to be one of the earliest, possibly preceded by the well-known portrait that is thought to show Cardinal Albergati (about this see the article Jan van Eyck’s Innovation of Passport Portraits in Oil.)

In 1432 the German electors had assembled in Cologne to decide how to act in the schism between the pope and the Council of Basel, opened in 1431. This council intended to reform the secularized Church and try to end the inappropriate situation of two unworthy popes rivalling with each other. Exactly on 10 October 1432, the date given on the Tymotheos portrait, a delegation was sent to Basel informing its members that the electors had decided to take the Council’s side against Pope Eugenius IV, who in March 1431 had succeeded Martin V after his death. As leader of the delegation the electors needed a man with special qualifications, not only high-ranking but also with necessary linguistic and theological skills. Several circumstances make it seem probable, that the man they chose was the so-called Tymotheos from the portrait. We know that Philip the Good was not present at the meeting in Cologne, but he had obvious interests in the proceedings and was probably represented by some of his travelling diplomats, maybe even by Jan van Eyck.

One of the German electors at the assembly in Cologne was Archbishop Ulrich von Manderscheid, representing Trier. He belonged to a wealthy and powerful family, and by a minority of the canons he had been elected successor to Otto von Ziegenhain, deceased in 1430. Ulrich had been supported by many important persons of the Moselle area, and he had been Philip the Good’s favourite. But war had broken out between him and his competitor Raban von Helmsted, who was preferred by the majority of the canons and by the Pope of Rome. A brother of Ulrich’s, Gerhard von Manderscheid, was also an important ecclesiastic. He was born about 1394, and in 1395, only a child, he was provided to Dean at St Gereon in Cologne. He became Domherr in 1412, the same year he matriculated at Artistenfakultät of the University of Cologne (Canonicus eccl. Coloniensis). Later he became Domscholasticus in 1431 and Probst at St Gereon in 1434. This learned cleric, Gerhard von Manderscheid, may be the man who is portrayed and remembered by Jan van Eyck with the remark LEAL SOVVENIR.

One circumstance in particular makes it probable that Gerhard is the man in the painting, and that is the remarkable fact that he is known to have been killed by Einsturz durch während eines Sturmes in St. Gereon zerbrechende Fenster on 30 September 1434, and this may be what Van Eyck is referring to when he painted the crack in the parapet. Gerhard lived in Cologne, and one of the few things I have found recorded about him is that exactly in 1432 he bought a horse, something this probst must have needed, if he was to be a member of the delegation. Another circumstance is, that October 10 was the day of St Gereon, the saint who was the patron of the church in Cologne where the Domscholasticus worked, and even his name Gerhard was derived from the saint’s name.

If Gerhard von Manderscheid actually was a member of the delegation, maybe even the head of it, he may have needed a small identity portrait in oil of the type Jan van Eyck seems to have started to paint in the service of Philip the Good around 1430. The possible existence of such a passport portrait painted during several sittings would explain how Van Eyck after Gerhard’s sudden death could paint the portrait in commemoration of him.

The Manderscheids were since generations a learned family. A younger brother, Johann, studied at the University of Heidelberg in 1414 and at the University of Vienna in 1417. He became Domherr in Cologne in 1444. Another younger brother, Heinrich, is reported as geistlich zu Echternach. Ulrich, who was probably born in 1401, came to the University of Cologne in 1414. A younger brother, Dietrich, became Domherr in Trier in 1414 and Canon at St Gereon’s in Cologne, later Domherr in Cologne. Two brothers, Dietrich and Wilhelm, are mentioned among those present at the Council of Basel, working for Ulrich’s cause. If Jan van Eyck was acquainted with these Manderscheid brothers and had perhaps been their fellow-student, this would explain his thorough knowledge of religion.

In noble families at this time the first education of the children was normally given in their homes. Afterwards, before matriculating at a university, often in the early teens, those destined for an ecclesiastical career usually went to the school of some religious centre. The later so famous Cardinal Nicolaus Cusanus, born in Kues at Moselle in the same year as Ulrich von Manderscheid, is thought to have had the privilege as a boy of studying together with the Manderscheid brothers. Then he is thought to have spent some time at the school of the Brothers of Common Life, probably at Deventer, before he went to the university of Heidelberg in 1416 for a short time. He completed his successful studies at the University of Padua. At the time of the meeting of the electors in Cologne he was Ulrich von Manderscheid’s secretary.

Since long, a connection between the Brothers of Common Life and the Van Eyck brothers has been considered probable, and it is obvious that at least they must have been in close contact with learned ecclesiastics. If the portrait known as Tymotheos is really Gerhard von Manderscheid, it would then be likely that Jan van Eyck through the Manderscheid family also made the acquaintance of Nicolaus Cusanus, one of the most gifted intellectuals of his time. The light mystic character found in some paintings by Van Eyck is a feature that is very essential in the philosophy of Cusanus. Nicolaus Cusanus was interested in magic, numerology, mystic numbers and years. He wrote about mathematics and astronomy and worked on the creation of a map of Europe, an interest shared by Jan van Eyck. It seems unlikely that these two learned men should not have been acquainted when they were young. They may even have met at the school of the Brothers of Common Life.

From the middle of the fourteen-twenties Nicolaus worked occasionally as a lawyer and had commissions that brought him in contact with several of the courts, such as Cleves, Berg and Burgundy in 1432. As Ulrich von Manderscheid’s secretary he was not successful in the competition for the Bishopric of Trier. However, he soon became one of the most renowned delegates at the Council of Basel, and even now but also in later years he wrote a great number of texts about religion and philosophy. In 1437 he travelled to Constantinople in the service of the pope. He made a brilliant ecclesiastic career and became Bishop of Brixen and a cardinal. A great many studies of the life and work of this remarkable man have been written. As a peculiarity, he was also known for his greed and numerous prebends. In 1458 he founded an important hospital at Kues, consecrated in 1465 and still existing.

Art was one of the many interests of Nicolaus Cusanus. He even practiced miniature painting and drawing himself. Some samples of his artistic ability have been preserved, among them thirty-two miniatures of faces in the manuscript of a lecture on jurisprudence from 1432. In a document from 1426 about duties on wine he has made a three-quarter-face of himself sitting at his writing-desk (Bayerisches Geheimes Hausarchiv, München). It is a sketchy drawing but yet he has succeeded in characterizing himself so well that it is possible to recognize his features in the earlier mentioned portrait of the determined and serious man in the National Gallery of London, which since long has been considered to have been painted by Robert Campin already in the 1420s or 1430s.

This Portrait of a Man, which has been the subject of many interpretations, seems to show Cusanus at an age about 50. Thus it must have been painted not earlier than the late 1440s and by another very qualified artist than Campin. The theory that it is Cusanus we meet in this portrait is confirmed by some other portraits of him, partly contemporary, in painting, sculpture and caricature, for instance the sculpture on his grave in Rome and the portrait which is a detail of the big altarpiece in St Nikolaus Hospital in Kues, a painting that on dubious grounds is attributed to the anonymous Master of the Life of the Virgin.

The Cusanus family is rather well known. Nicolaus was the son of Johann Krebs (Cryfftz), a successful shipmaster and businessman on the Moselle, dead not later than 1457. Though Cusanus for his career lived most of his time in the South, he often travelled in northern Europe and visited his family in Kues when possible. He was appointed a cardinal in 1448, and shortly before the official announcement of his appointment in January 1450, he is known to have visited Kues on 21 October 1449, the day of St Ursula, to take leave of his old father, of his brother Johannes, who was a priest, and of his sister Klara. October 21 is also the date that is written on Jan van Eyck’s A Man with a Turban from 1433, indicating that this day had a special significance in the family. Maybe it was the birthday of Johann Krebs. When the artist has written not only the year but also a specific date on his paintings, he seems to have had a special reason for it. This makes it probable that the man portrayed as A Man with a Turban, often thought to be Jan van Eyck’s father-in-law, really may be Johann Krebs.

The portrait of the beautiful lady hanging at the side of the supposed portrait of Cusanus in the National Gallery of London probably shows his sister Klara. Her first husband was Johannes Plynisch in Trier, and her second was the Trierer Schöffe, Schultheiss und Bürgermeister Paul van Bristge of a Trierer Patrizienfamilie. When her second husband died in 1473, Klara expressed in a will her wish to be buried before the altar of St Nikolaus Hospital in Kues. Her gravestone, now on the southern wall of the chapel, has an excellent portrait of her that is most likely scuptured by the renowned Nicolaus Gerhaert, an artist who has signed the tomb of Archbishop Jakob von Sierk in Trier in 1462 and is thought to have known Cusanus. The not very big number of fringes on her headcloth, observed here and on the portrait in the National Gallery, suggest that her social rank was not among the highest.

Klara is known to have had an elder sister, Margaret, married to a Trierer Schöffe. She is supposed to have died early, ´sicher vor 1447´. It is well known that Jan van Eyck’s portrait of his wife Margaret (Stedelijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Bruges), dated in 1439, shows so much likeness to A Man with a Turban, that she could really be the man’s daughter. Unfortunately the printed sources give us only scanty information about Cusanus’s sister Margaret, and it may be incorrect in parts. Further research may show us, if she possibly could be identical with the Margaret that Jan van Eyck married in 1433. If one tries to count the number of fringes on the artist’s portrait of his wife, this proves to be impossible, as the ingenious artist, probably on purpose, has painted them twisted in such a way, that they seem to be more numerous than the linings. And a preserved document states that the artist’s wife was still in life in 1456.

If the two portraits in the National Gallery really represent Cusanus and his sister Klara, they can hardly have been painted before the second half of the 1440s. Thus they can no longer be seen as crucial for the history of portrait painting in oil. In the future scholars may be able to find some peculiar stylistic features, that instead point to Campin’s pupil Rogier van der Weyden, particularly since it is known that Cusanus admired this artist. The portrait referred to as Robert de Masmines in Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, often mentioned in connection with the two portraits in London as a painting by Campin, was neither painted by Campin, nor does it represent Robert de Masmines, as I am trying to show in the article Jean Fouquet and Early Portrait Painting.

It remains to present a possible interpretation of the Greek words that are painted on Jan van Eyck’s portrait of the person, whom I suppose to be Gerhard von Manderscheid. Mr. Nils-Olof Jönsson of the University of Lund has kindly submitted an attempt to solve the obviously intricate problem, showing some connection between the text and the fact that the person was prematurely thrown into the grave.
 

An attempt to interpret the Greek inscription of the painting Portrait of a Young Man in the National Gallery.

The traditional interpretation of the inscription, Tymotheos, must be questioned for several reasons. First of all there is a clear spacing between TYM. and the following word WQEO - -. The dot after TYM must be a full stop, probably signifying an abbreviation. The common Greek name, e.g. in the Epistle of St. Paul, is usually spelled TimoJeoV, that is with an iota instead of an upsilon in the first syllable, and with an o micron instead of an o mega in the second. The last letter but one of the inscription is fragmentary but could not possibly be interpreted as a sigma. The last letter is wholly unclear but there seem to be faint traces of a circle on the photocopy of the photograph of the painting.

Assuming that there are two words, the second could very well be a form of the Greek verb wJew, meaning “throw, precipitate”. The unclear word could be wJeomai, ”I am thrown”, or wJeoio, ”you may be thrown”. As far as the first word goes, the only possible Greek word in the context that could be abbreviated TYM. is tumboV, tomb. The accusative, tumbon, would mean “into the grave”.

We must bear in mind that the author of the two words may not have been too familiar with classical Greek, nor with its grammatical forms; as a matter of fact he seems to use uncontracted forms of the verb. However, it seems highly probable that the inscription refers to somebody being precipitated into the grave.

Nils-Olof Jönsson     

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