Carondelet Diptych

The left wing of the diptych represents Jean Carondelet while the right the Virgin and Child. It is signed at the bottom of the right wing: ‘Johannes Melbodie Pingebat’, and dated at the bottom of the left wing:‘Fait l’an 1517. On the frames: various inscriptions referring to the Virgin or indicating the donor.

Carondelet is represented half-length, praying before the Virgin; on the back of the portrait is his coat-of-arms, and on the back of the Virgin is a trompe-l’oeil skull, with a pious inscription and the date.

Carondelet was born at D�le in 1469, and died at Mechelen in 1545; he was the son of Chancellor Carondelet. He was a church dignitary, holding various offices and benefices, and played a political r�le in the Low Countries. Having entered the Church, he acquired various important posts. From 1497 he was a member of the Grand Conseil pour les affaires du Justice. In 1517 he went to Spain with Charles V, and returned with him to the Low Countries in 1519. In 1531 he became President of the Privy Council. In addition, he acquired numerous ecclesiastical dignities; in 1493 he was Archbishop of Palermo and Primate of Sicily. He was a scholar and a humanist, and a friend of Erasmus, who dedicated his Saint Hilarius to him; evidently he had a liking for having his portrait done, since there are two others of him by Gossart, another by Van Orley, and one by Vermeyen.

This work dates from Gossart’s mature period; it shows his preoccupation with the sculptured form which he acquired through contact with Michelangelo and antique statues in Rome in 1508. In this year he accompanied Philip of Burgundy, natural son of Philip the Good and Admiral of the fleet, who was sent as a private ambassador to Philip II. It is assumed that the artist based this painting on some antique bust - Euripides, Socrates, or Julius Caesar. The artist was torn between the Flemish tendency towards naturalism and Italian idealization, as can be seen in his portrayal of the Virgin. For this reason the donor portrait is superior to the other wing, both in truth of life and in pictorial quality; it is, moreover, in a better state of preservation.