As an outstanding master with respected positions at different distinguished courts Jan van Eyck had of course the possibility to be discriminating in the choice of assistants. It is documented that he really had assistants, and as most masters he had probably apprentices all the time. We do not know, however, the name of a single one of these artists, although some of them most likely were very talented and creative. The Bruges artist Jean Coene received in 1438 payment from Duke Philip the Good for plusieurs enluminures et lettres d'or in a Breviary. It was probably also to Coene that Jan van Eyck in 1439, as agent for the Duke, arranged payment to an artist who had illuminated certain livre pour mon dit seigneur. Coene is, however, not mentioned as an assistant, nor is Petrus Christus, who came to Bruges after Jan’s death and, like many other artists, was influenced by the deceased master’s style.

When trying to recognize possible additions by a strong personality creating on a line more typical for him than for his probably very dominating master, I had long beared in mind the magical quality of the quiet landscape with cattle and walking and riding women and men on the miniature at the foot of the page of the so-called Sovereign’s Prayer, now only known from a photograph taken before the Turin Hours was distroyed by fire. The ´essence´ of this masterly picture, of a moment of stillness and peace in a region tormented by wars, suggests an artist with a temperament somewhat different from that of the one who has painted the lively main part, normally thought to have been Jan van Eyck. It was not until I saw a reproduction of the minature St Margaret and the Prefect Olybrius (Louvre, Paris) from Jean Fouquet’s famous Heures d’Étienne Chevalier that I recognized another work with the same charasteristic qualities, a painting where a calm and peaceful life is in a likely way contrasted against threatening violence.

Jean Fouquet’s earliest years, ´la jeunesse de Fouquet´, is a very disturbing gap in the history of art, as he may be considered the very best French artist of the fifteenth century. He was obviously already a master of certain fame when he in Italy was commissioned to paint a later very admired but lost portrait of Pope Eugenius IV, who was appointed in 1431 and died in January 1447. One old source tells that Fouquet was born in Tours. It is rather sure that he died at the end of 1480 or at the beginning of 1481. The year for his birth is, however, unknown, and so are his parents. That he should have been born c. 1415-20 is a guess based mainly on his supposed age on a preserved self-portrait thought to have been painted in the first half of the 1450s, and on the fact that A Filarete, a Florentine architect, sculptor and theoretician who probably knew Fouquet from the time when he painted the portrait of Eugenius IV, mentions him as the ´image of youth´. The first part of this remarkably talented artist’s life is, however, obscure to the point that one may suspect that researchers have missed or misunderstood some circumstances.

O Pächt has presented arguments making it rather probable that Fouquet’s earliest preserved painting could be the portrait of Niccolo III of Este’s jester Gonella (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), which is painted in a style resembling that of Jan van Eyck’s portraits, although obviously by an artist painting in a somewhat different way and with a different temperament, someone nearer to simple human life than the cold and intellectual Van Eyck. The portrait has on its back a dark-green marble imitation, also this in the style we know from Jan van Eyck’s portraits.

Dendrochronological analysis suggests that the Gonella portrait has to be dated c. 1440. When X-rayed some colour notations on it in French were revealed, supporting the attribution to Fouquet. The portrait reminds in many ways of Van Eyck’s portrait of the supposed Cardinal Albergati (also Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), a painting to which a preparatory sketch with colour notations is preserved in Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden. The fact that the portrait of Albergati is likely to have been painted in 1431 (See the article Jan van Eyck’s Innovation of Passport Portraits in Oil) points at the possibility that Fouquet may have been near acquainted with Van Eyck’s realistic portrait style as early as in the 1430s, maybe even earlier.

According to an unsure tradition Jean Fouquet should have collaborated with the until newly obscure artist ´Haincelin de Haguenot´, who is documented as working in Paris during part of the first two decades of the fifteenth century, now tentativly identified by me as the young Jan van Eyck (See the article Jan van Eyck as Miniature Painter at the French Court). Supposing that Fouquet in reality was born already as early as at the beginning of the fifteenth centrury, as in fact has been suggested, then it would be possible to see him as a pupil of Van Eyck already in the 1420s or maybe as assistant during some period.

In medieval times it is rather frequent to find persons mentioned with different names. As regards Jean Fouquet it is tempting to consider the possibility that he could be identical with un obviously unusually talented artist, whose name in preserved documents has been read as Jehan de Maisoncelles. This by the court favoured painter is in the period 1426-39 mentioned for several works in the southern part of Burgundy, that is in a period that would match as the years preceding Fouquet’s travel to Italy. Among mentioned commissions certifying this artist’s high standard are a lost waist-length portrait of Duke Philip the Good with the Order of the Golden Fleece, paid for in 1436, and a large wall painting 1436 of the Dance of Death in the later destroyed cloister Sainte-Chapelle in Dijon, works executed while René of Anjou was kept in prison in Dijon. He executed fresco paintings 1439 in the St Jean Cathedral in Besançon 75 km east of Dijon. Coats of arms painted by his hand were presented as late as in 1474 in connection with mourning festivities after the death of Philip the Good. Although he seems to have been the leading artist in Dijon during more than a decade, no preserved painting has with credibility been attributed to him. The sometimes suggested Presentation with Kneeling Donors, once in the charterhouse of Champmol, now in Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dijon, is a rather conventional work nearest in the tradition of Rogier van der Weyden.

Remembering the many misread medieval writings, that so long have confused interpreters of the history of art, there may be the possibility that Maisoncelles in reality could be a misreading of Besançon, the place where the artist already in 1426 is mentioned for some, now destroyed, paintings in churches. It has been suggested that the place from which this artist got his name should have been the little village Maisoncelles not long from Agincourt, where the English army rested before and after the well-known battle in 1415. For me it seems more likely to guess that this Jean may have come from Maisoncelles du Maine in the Loire area, where Duke Arthur of Richemont, who Jean Fouquet certainly knew, lived in Parthenay, and René of Anjou, who Fouquet is likely to have known, had his court in Anger, not very long from Fouquet’s future home city Tours further eastwards on the Loire.

My suggestion that the so-called Jean de Maisoncelles and Jean Fouquet might be the same artist is strengthened by the fact, that there is mentioned as living in Dijon in the period 1442-47 an ´ymaigeur´ Jehannin Fouqueret, who at the same period also worked as ´tailleur d´imaiges´ at the construction of Nicolas Rolin’s still preserved Hôtel-Dieu in Beaune. Also in 1454 this artist is mentioned for some work in Dijon. As Jean de Maisoncelles ended a first period in Dijon in 1439, it would make a travel to Italy possible in the period from this year to 1442, when he may have returned, now as one also in Italy well-reputed portrait painter. Some interpreters have tried to make it probable that Fouquet should have been born as the bastard child of a priest; if so he may now have been acknowledged by his father. It is normally guessed that Fouquet’s famed portrait of Eugenius IV together with ´two intimates´ should have been painted shortly before this pope’s death in 1447. Today we know only an engraving of a central part of the lost portrait, which seems to show this obstinate pope as still in full power, making a dating to one of the first years of the 1440s rather probable, that is at about the same time as the Gonella portrait seems to have been painted. Since he in 1434 had been forced to flee to Florence, Pope Eugenius IV was living exiled from Rome until 1443, so Fouquet may have been able to portray him in Florence. The Council that had opened at the beginning of 1438 in Ferrara, where Gonella lived at the Este court, moved in the following year to Florence. With this city Fouquet was obviously very acquainted, as can be seen in transformed recollections in some of his miniatures.

Accepting a possible near connection between Jan van Eyck and Fouquet, and the possibility that Fouquet was a very respected master already in the 1430s, there seems to be reason to take into consideration, if the still preserved portraits of Nicolas Rolin and his wife in Hôtel-Dieu, normally thought to have been executed by Rogier van der Weyden, could not instead have been painted by Fouquet, who is documented as working at the construction of this building. The year 1447, when the ‘ymaigeur’ Fouqueret after several years work seems to have left Dijon, points directly at this artist’s possible identity with the well-known Jean Fouquet, who in the following year settled down in his home town Tours, where members of his family then are known into the sixteenth century.

If Jean Fouquet should really have been educated and for a period have worked in the same Burgundian-French art milieu as Rogier van der Weyden, it must certainly sometimes be a difficult question to judge, if a work by one of these two artists of first range should be ascribed to the one or the other. It is e g normally thought that it should have been Van der Weyden who painted the quite outstanding miniature of Duke Philip the Good and his court, which is inserted as frontispiece in the ortherwise less interestingly illuminated Chroniques de Hainaut (Bibliothèque Royale Albert 1er, Brussels), a book translated for Philip the Good in 1447 and of which the other illustrations, all of a lower quality, may have been executed shortly thereafter. The generally accepted ascription of this famous miniature on parchment to an artist otherwise not known for such works is of course mainly based on the fact that no other artist than Van der Weyden is known for paintings of such an exceptional quality in the Burgundian art milieu at the actual time. Taking into consideration the possibility that the for outstanding miniatures so well-documented Fouquet may have paid a visit to Brussels in connection with his return from Italy c. 1447-48 makes it not only possible but rather probable, that it instead is he who has painted the so admired picture of the Burgundian court assembled around Philip the Good, especially as some of his later works show resemblances.

The frontispiece of the Chroniques de Hainaut represents a scene from about the time when Fouquet is mentioned to have returned to his native Tours in 1448, because it shows Charles of Burgundy in his early teens. Perhaps Fouquet did not find Philip the Good’s Burgundy to be a suitable milieu for his future career, with the excellent master Rogier van der Weyden established as a favourite in Brussels. There is also the possibility that Fouquet, with his sense for the inner qualities of human life, may have despised the artificial Burgundian court milieu. This famous miniature of a despot among his paid helpers is in fact at a closer look not only at the edge of being a caricature, it is a scornful caricature. This can hardly have been invisible for the proud and self-important Duke Philip, here shown dollishly strutting on spider-like legs, theatrically holding a diminutive hammer in his right hand, a symbol that here may hint at the fact that personally he was not very much of a warrior.

One of the brightest brains of this time, the Italian Enea Silvio de’ Piccolomini, the later Pope Pius II, widely travelled in Europe, among else in the service of Emperor Frederick III during several years, has in a letter 1454 pointed at the unintellectual atmosphere of the Burgundian court: Duke Philip’s way of life was not to rise until noon, then to attend to some few affairs of state before dinner, dine, take an afternoon nap, do a few gymnastic exercises, go to supper and eat on until very late; then listen to music and entertain himself with dancing: more serious business would have quite put him out (W Boulting in his biography of Piccolomini 1908).

In the here discussed picture of the Burgundian court chancellor Rolin is one of the few who are represented with dignity, portrayed beside Philip with a face resembling that on the mentioned painting in Beaune. Philip’s councillor Jean Chevrot, bishop of the French enclave Tournai, is posing beside him as striving for special prominance. In a row to the right we see a group of serviantly loyal-looking nobles, all of them bound to Duke Philip as members of his Order of the Golden Fleece. They are in an ironic way surpassed by the flattened dog at Philip’s feet, a picture of total submission. In the central scene with the translator J Wauquelin presenting the precious Chroniques de Hainaut to the duke we see how the artist indiscreetly reveals a strained atmosphere at the court and a growing conflict. The young Charles, the future heir of Burgundy, is represented as a not very clever young man, showing no interest in the happening just before him, instead looking enviously at the man farthest to the right.

This man can be identified with the at the court important Jean of Croy, captain-general and bailiff of Hainault, here presenting himself as the one who has arranged the translation and the illustration of the book. He is known as a collector and commissioner of illuminated books and thought to have been somewhat of a minister for culture at the Burgundian court. When Charles the Bold came to power, Jean of Croy was one of those who temporarily lost their favoured positions. Clearly in eye-contact with Jean of Croy is one of the nobles in the row of members of the Order of the Golden Fleece. He is dressed very like the young Charles, although in a different main colour. This man has a more individualized face than most of the others. He is probably Philip the Good’s son together with Jeanne de Presles, Anthony of Burgundy, le grand bâtard, who is thought to have been born around 1430 and is known for a long career as diplomat and commander in wars, also as collector of books.

My suggestion that he ought to be identified with Anthony of Burgundy raises an interesting question, because Anthony was not appointed a member of the Golden Fleece until in 1456, meaning that the famous frontispiece should not have been inserted in the Chroniques de Hainaut before the later half of the 1450s. The question is of interest, as not only Philip the Good himself but also all the other nobles are represented with exaggerated shoulders in the ´grande forme´ thought to have been invented in Italy in the 1440s, maybe by Jean Fouquet at the time when he painted the portrait of Pope Eugenius IV. Paintings by Fouquet in this style are, however, interpreted to be dateable earliest to the 1450s.

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