Jan van Eyck, Canon Joris van der Paele, and the Art of Commemoration

Jan van Eyck's van der Paele Virgin, commissioned to mark his patron's chaplaincies at St. Donatian's church, Bruges, can be situated within the visual culture of commemoration in the Netherlands, and specifically within the tradition of erecting a wall-mounted memorial to mark one's burial place or the site of a pious foundation. Scrutiny of written sources-both archival documents and the inscriptions on the picture's frame-together with comparisons with contemporary memorials clarify not only the circumstances of the painting's commission but also the question of its original setting and the precise nature of its memorializing function.