Rogier van der Weyden

Rogier de la Pasture

Netherlandish, 1399/1400 - 1464

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A woman with pale white skin and her blond hair covered by a wide veil is shown from the waist up in this vertical portrait painting. Her folded hands rest on the lower edge of the panel, suggesting that she sits just on the other side, close to us. The transparent white veil covers her blond hair and falls in stiff, wide panes down in front of her shoulders. Her hair is pulled back behind a black ribbon over a high forehead. Her light brown eyes are downcast and she has a straight nose and full, pale pink lips. Her chest is covered by another veil and is tucked into the deep V-neck of her long-sleeved, black dress. A wide scarlet-red belt adorned with an ornately filigreed gold belt buckle encircles her narrow waist. Her skin, white veils, and red belt contrast sharply with her velvety black dress and the dark pine green of the background.
Rogier van der Weyden, Portrait of a Lady, c. 1460, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.44

Portrait of a Lady

Rogier van der Weyden · c. 1460 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.44

A man wearing armor and riding a rearing gray horse pins a winged, reptile-like dragon to the ground using a long lance at the center of this vertical painting. A woman kneels beyond the man and dragon to our left, and mountains and a city lining a body of water stretch into the deep distance. The man’s gleaming silver armor covers his whole body except his pale peach face, his brown hair, and his feet. Two long strips of burgundy-red material unfurl from under his arms to flutter behind him like banners. A white shield with a red cross is propped on his upper left arm, and he holds the lance with his right hand high over his head. The lance spans nearly the whole composition, creating a diagonal from near the top edge to the lower right corner, where it almost pierces the back of the dragon’s neck. The olive-green dragon has a royal-blue stripe down its back and tail, and it opens its beak-like mouth and sticks out its long, forked tongue. Skulls and bones are scattered on the ground around the dragon. The woman to our left has pale pink skin and her blond hair is bound up and covered with a translucent veil. Her long, high-necked dress is patterned with blue and gold, and red fringe or fabric drapes down from the underside of the sleeves. Buildings cluster at the top of a projecting ridge above the woman in the background, and more buildings line the edge of a body of water below. Ships with unfurled sails pass by blue mountains in the distance. The horizon line comes three-quarters of the way up the panel and the blue sky is dotted with clouds.
Rogier van der Weyden, Saint George and the Dragon, c. 1432/1435, oil on panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1966.1.1

Saint George and the Dragon

Rogier van der Weyden · c. 1432/1435 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1966.1.1

A woman wearing a cobalt-blue robe and a white veil sits with her hands raised, palms out, as she looks toward a slender, bearded man who stands to our left in this vertical painting. Both have light skin and delicate features, and they sit in a room with stone walls and arched windows. There are faint circles under the woman’s light brown eyes. She has a long slender nose, and her pink lips are pursed. One knee is bent, and she is low to the ground, suggesting she sits on a stool. A book lies open on a wooden stand in front of her to our right, below her left elbow. The ruffled edges of her multi-layered, white veil sweep over her forehead and down to her shoulders. Her loose, long-sleeved blue garment is edged with gold and falls in angular folds to pool at her feet. She holds her long-fingered, slender hands up at her chest, palms facing the man to our left. He stands with his body angled toward her as he looks down, his head tipped slightly forward. His brown hair falls over his shoulders. His voluminous, gold-edged, red cloak is fastened at his throat with a gold, jeweled brooch, and it drapes over his shoulders and around his lower torso, leaving his arms, chest, and a gash over his right ribs exposed. He holds a tall, gold staff topped with a jeweled cross in his left hand, to our right. A moss-green pennant flutters back from the base of the cross, as if lifted in a breeze. The man holds up his other hand so the palm faces the woman with the first two fingers raised. Round, puncture wounds with red blood mark the palm of that hand and tops of both bare feet. The floor is patterned with gray, brown, blue, and green tiles. The wall behind the woman has honey-brown paneling along the bottom half and the top half is slate gray. Gray columns are spaced along that wall, supporting a curving, vaulted ceiling. Two arched windows pierce the wall behind the woman, and both have stained glass designs within the curving tops. The window closer to us opens onto a narrow view of a landscape with a rose-pink arch over a bridge, and a path winding through green fields. An open door over the shoulder of the man, to our left, shows the stepped roofline of a pink building under a blue sky. The entire scene is framed with a flattened arch supported by gleaming columns of polished, veined brown stone, creating the impression that we look onto the people and room through the arch. The columns have leafy capitals and white bases. The tan-colored arch is carved with a row of stylized rosettes along the opening that spans the top of the painting.
Anonymous Artist, Christ Appearing to the Virgin, c. 1475, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.45

Christ Appearing to the Virgin

Anonymous Artist · c. 1475 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.45

Bibliography

1930

  • Destrée, Jules. Roger de la Pasture van der Weyden. 2 vols. Paris and Brussels, 1930.

1949

  • Rolland, P. "Les Impératifs historiques de la biographie de Roger." Revue Belge d'Archéologie et d'Histoire de l'Art 18 (1949): 145-161.

1953

  • Panofsky, ENP 1953: 155-158, 248-302.

1966

  • Feder, Theodore. "A Reexamination Through Documents of the First Fifty Years of Roger van der Weyden's Life." The Art Bulletin 48 (1966): 416-431.

1972

  • Davies, Martin. Rogier van der Weyden. London, 1972.

1979

  • Soenen, M. "Un renseignement inédit sur la destinée d'une oeuvre bruxelloise de Van der Weyden, ..." In R. van der Weyden, Rogier de le Pasture. Exh. cat., Musée Communal de Bruxelles, Brussels, 1979: 126-128.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1986: 241.