Revoir Van Eyck
La Vierge du chancelier Rolin
To share with the public the event represented by this historic restoration (the work had never been restored since its entry into the Louvre in 1800), the museum decided to devote the first of the exhibitions – files to be held in the room de la Chapelle since 2014 to Jan Van Eyck’s masterpiece: Chancellor Rolin in prayer before the Virgin and Child, also known as The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin. The restoration, which notably made it possible to lighten the layers of oxidized varnish which darkened the painting, offers a spectacular rediscovery of the painting.
This operation is part of the current momentum of study of the works of Van Eyck, first launched by the restoration of the altarpiece of the Mystic Lamb in Ghent. For almost ten years, in fact, these international and interdisciplinary dialogues have strongly renewed the questions of specialists. In turn, the Louvre intends to show the public how the studies carried out at the Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France and the restoration itself question what we thought we knew about this work, long called The Virgin of Authun.
This major painting of Western art, today surprisingly little known, may seem difficult to understand. This is why the exhibition will be guided by questions, which are all stages of looking at the painting: for what use(s) did Van Eyck design this very special work, intention of Chancellor Nicolas Rolin? Why did he paint in the background a landscape so miniaturized that it is almost invisible? How can we understand the two little characters in the garden? What dialogues does the work maintain with both the art of illumination and sculpted funerary bas-reliefs? Can we know how 15th century artists understood this work? In a sense, the Rolin Virgin crystallizes the tensions that ran through Flemish art in the first third of the 15th century, between medieval tradition and revolutionary experimentation.
The exploration of The Virgin of Chancellor Rolin is enriched by its comparison with other works by Van Eyck, but also by Roger Van der Weyden, Robert Campin and the great illuminators of the time. Around sixty painted panels, manuscripts, drawings, sculpted bas-reliefs and goldworked objects will be exceptionally brought together, thanks to the support of numerous museums and institutions in France and abroad such as the Städel Museum in Frankfurt (which is lending the Virgin of Lucca), the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the Royal Library in Brussels, the Morgan Library and Museum in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.
