Out of a Cottage

The picture had hung for years above the fireplace of a cottage in the Thames side village of Bray: a long-nosed, sallow ascetic with a scarred mouth, dressed in fur-trimmed doublet and dark scholar's cloak. A gold halo and inscription announce him to be St. Ivo, "the poor man's lawyer." Behind him, a window discloses silver water, trees, a farm, an arched bridge. The little panel (it measures 181 in. by 141 in.) had disappeared in the Middle Ages and reappeared late in the 19th century in the collection of the first Lord Newlands of Mauldslie Castle, a Scottish industrialist with a taste for painting. It was vaguely attributed to the 15th century Flemish painter Quentin Massys. But nobody paid much attention, least of all the owner's heir Violet, Lady Baird, who kept it in her cottage at Bray mainly because it reminded her of a dear friend. Then, in December 1967, she decided to sell a trinket or two. David Carritt, a renowned art sleuth then working for Christie's, obligingly visited the cottage at Bray, expecting nothing, and came away stunned. The painting, he said, "is one of the most rare, beautiful and important 15th century Flemish pictures anywhere in the world."

Duke or Saint. This week Britain's National Gallery will put the panel on show cleaned, the halo and lettering removed (they are by a later hand), and identified as a lost work by the great Flemish master Rogier van der Weyden. After long negotiation with the estate of Lady Baird, who died in 1969, the gallery bought it for the equivalent in cash and tax relief of $1,920,000. It was the second highest price ever paid by the museum for a work of art, topped only by the $2,240,000 paid for Leonardo da Vinci's cartoon of the Virgin and Child with St. John the Baptist and St. Anne, in 1962.

Carritt had concluded that it was a portrait painted around 1440 of Van der Weyden's patron, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. Other experts, such as John Pope-Hennessy, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, agreed. If it began as a portrait and was later converted into a religious image of St. Ivo, the National Gallery's painting is of unparalleled historical interest: it would be the first portrait in the history of Western art with a landscape in the background. Moreover, says Christie's, "it is the first portrait in European history to depict the sitter engaged in a normal everyday activity --in this case, reading a missive." The painted lettering is illegible and thus gives no clue to the man's identity, but the scar is identical to that shown on other known portraits of Philip.

The National Gallery cautiously prefers to stick with St. Ivo. "The natural pose would be extraordinary if the picture were of Philip, merely somewhat unusual but nevertheless remarkable if it were of a saint," says Director Martin Davies. Yet the scholarly debate will certainly go on. The impassioned detail from the heavy eyes and fine-drawn skin to the sensitive mouth, argue a living model whose exact image Rogier van der Weyden was determined to record. Duke or saint, the painting is one of the most precious art discoveries of the past ten years.

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