Patronage and the Burgundian court

Magazine Antiques, Oct, 2004 by Stephen N. Fliegel

The Burgundian dynasty, and its attendant aristocrats, continued to insist throughout the fifteenth century on materialistic ostentation, flaunting their ability to pay for expensive paintings, tapestries, sculptures, jewelry, and objects of gold and silver to adorn their residences. In artistic and political emphasis the later dukes, Philip the Good and Charles the Bold, gradually turned away from their capital at Dijon to the Low Countries, where they ruled the towns of Ypres, Bruges, and Ghent on which their wealth was founded. The patronage of the last two dukes extended largely to major painters and other artists and illuminators of the so-called Northern Renaissance.

An international loan exhibition Dukes and Angels: Art from the Court of Burgundy (1364-1419), organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Ville de Dijon is on view in Cleveland from October 24 to January 9, 2005. It was shown earlier at the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Dijon. The exhibition comprises about 150 objects mostly commissioned by or for the Burgundian court, including sculpture, panel paintings, illuminated manuscripts, textiles, gold- and silversmiths' works, and jewelry. An English version of the catalogue to the exhibition is available from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

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(1) Richard Vaughan's series of four ducal histories still offers a compelling outline of the epoch and the political, social, and cultural forces of the respective reigns. The four-volume series, originally published between 1962 and 1973, was reissued by the Boydell Press, Wood-bridge, Sussex, in 2002: vol. 1, Philip the Bold: The Formation of the Burgundian State; vol. 2, John the Fearless: The Growth of Burgundian Power, vol. 3, Philip the Good: The Apogee of Burgundy; and vol. 4, Charles the Bold: The Last Valois Duke of Burgundy. For a more recent assessment of the impact of the Burgundian court and its patronage on fifteenth-century Europe, see Marina Belozerskaya, Rethinking the Renaissance: Burgundian Arts across Europe (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2002).

(2) Patrick M. de Winter, "The Patronage of Philippe le Hardi, Duke of Burgundy (1364-1404)" (Ph.D dissertation, New York University, 1976; on microfilm [University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1976], vol. 1, pp. 135-136).

(3) Fabrice Rey, "Les collections de tapisseries," in L'art a la cour de Bourgogne: Le mecenat de Philippe le Hardi et de Jean sans Peur (1364-1419) (Reunion des musees nationaux, Paris, 2004), pp. 123-125.

(4) The Nine Heroes tapestries, French, late fourteenth century, were owned by Jean, due de Berry, and are now in the Cloisters Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The Apocalypse tapestries, now preserved at the Chateau d'Angers, France, were commissioned by Louis I, duc d'Anjou, brother of Philip the Bold of Burgundy, for which see Rene Planchenault, L'Apocalypse d'Angers (Caisse nationale des monuments historiques et des sites, Paris, 1966).