FLEMISH brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck’s masterpiece, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, was completed in 1432 – but its story was far from over.
It is one of, if not the most, coveted artwork in history.
Painter Hubert, who unfortunately has no other remaining artworks to his name, would not live to see the painting’s completion.
He died six years earlier and his brother Jan, who became famous for his works, went to great lengths to ensure his brother’s efforts were recognised.
And they were.
Art historians call it the “first major oil painting” and is an important marker in the transition from Middle Age to Renaissance art.
The artwork is a two-tonne triptych, 4.4m by 3.5m.
A triptych is a work of art made up of three panels.
Imagine opening a book with two covers that fold outwards, and each surface has a painting or other artwork on it.
The centre panel is usually the largest and serves as the focal point, while the two side panels, called “wings”, can often be folded inward to close like a set of doors.
In the case of the Ghent Altarpiece, it not only had works on the inside and outside, but had upper and lower registers.
Its completion was a technical triumph for its time and a grand addition to Europe’s growing pool of sacred art.
Panels in detail
When closed, the upper register features prophets Zechariah and Micah on the left, and Daniel and Isaiah on the right, flanking a central depiction of The Annunciation.
These Old Testament figures are deliberate choices – symbolising the prophetic foretelling of Christ’s coming.
In the lower register, sculptural representations of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist frame the two donors of the artwork, Joos Vijd and Elisabeth Borluut, who are portrayed in a state of prayer.
Upon opening, the altarpiece reveals an even more intricate tableau.
The upper register is dominated by a central panel featuring God the Father (sometimes debated to be Christ or an embodiment of the Trinity), crowned with a papal tiara.
On His flanks are the Virgin Mary, depicted holding a book, as the “Seat of Wisdom”, and John the Baptist holding his staff and book of prophecies.
The lower register opens to an expansive scene for which the whole piece gets its name, The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.
It shows a verdant meadow home to various groups – saints, angels, prophets and apostles – all converging to adore the Lamb of God who stands upon an altar.
Above the Lamb is the Holy Spirit shining out over the scene.
In the wings are Adam and Eve – more on them later – and angelic musicians who are notable for their bizarrely true-to-life depiction of a parish choir, which was uncommon for the time.
Early days and a brush with iconoclasm
The triptych was commissioned by the merchant and Ghent mayor Jodocus Vijd and his wife Lysbette for St Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium – for which it gets its common name, the Ghent Altarpiece.
The artwork was later moved for security reasons to the cathedral chapel, where it resides today – or, at least, most of it does.
The first threat to the altarpiece was a mob wielding torches (and probably pitchforks).
The Great Iconoclasm of 1566 swept through the Low Countries, particularly affecting areas in modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands.
The Beeldenstorm or “Image Storm”, was fuelled by rising Calvinist sentiment, as well as social and economic tensions.
Disaffected mobs were storming churches and destroying Catholic art.
In Ghent, the Calvinist presence was growing and at stark odds with the Catholic Spanish Habsbergs who controlled the city.
The altarpiece was already considered one of the greatest treasures of Catholic art in Europe, making it a prime target for Protestant iconoclasts who viewed such elaborate religious artworks as idolatrous.
A furious Calvinist mob stormed St Bavo’s Cathedral set on burning the altarpiece but, when they forced their way in, they found the altarpiece was gone.
One story that circulated was that the Catholics inside had winched the panel up into the bell tower.
It remained hidden for almost 20 years.
The altarpiece emerged again around 1584, when Catholic orthodoxy regained control in the region.
Napoleon and a thief in the night
Even after the altarpiece went back on display and Calvinist sentiment eased, it was not without controversy.
The nakedness of Adam and Eve – more likely the anatomical accuracy – was offensive to some 18th Century sensibilities.
When Emperor Joseph II visited the cathedral in 1781, he demanded the removal of Adam and Eve.
He would not have to wait long for his wish to come true.
After the French Revolution, in 1794, Napoleon Bonaparte sent troops to steal four of the altarpiece’s panels.
The panels were taken to Paris as loot and exhibited at the Louvre.
After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo and the reinstatement of the monarchy, the returning King Louis XVIII sent the panels back to Ghent as a sign of good will for protecting him while in exile.
The same year, a priest in Ghent Cathedral pawned the wings of the altarpiece.
They changed hands with an art dealer before they were sold in 1821 to the King of Prussia for an astronomical sum.
They were exhibited in Berlin.
During the First World War, German forces snatched the remaining panels from Ghent and reunited them with the wings in Berlin.
But their unification, much like Germany’s, was short-lived.
The reparations of the Treaty of Versailles demanded the artwork’s return to Ghent, a decision that was deeply resented by the German public.
For the final time, the Ghent Altarpiece was fully intact back in its home.
In 1934, thieves hid away in the Ghent Cathedral until after the doors were locked.
They sprang from their hiding place and delicately stole The Just Judges and St John the Baptist panels.
A note was placed in the spot where it had been: “Taken from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles”.
Twenty days later, the Bishop of Ghent got the ransom letter for one million Belgian francs – it was refused.
A further 11 letters were exchanged by the government and the thief, which led to the return of the St John the Baptist grisaille painting both as proof of capture and a show of good faith by the thief.
In 1934, a stockbroker Arsene Goedertier confessed to his lawyer that he stole the panels and that he would take the secret of their location to his grave.
He told his lawyer to check a drawer in his writing table.
The lawyer found an unsent note among carbon copies of the ransom notes.
The unsent note read, “(it) rests in a place where neither I, nor anybody else, can take it away without arousing the attention of the public”.
Speculation is rife about where the panel is, with many suggesting Goedertier had help on the inside from a priest and that the panel never actually left the cathedral.
X-rays conducted to a depth of 10 metres of the entirety of the cathedral did not reveal the panel.
To this day, a Ghent police detective remains assigned to the case of the missing panel.
Hiding away from Nazi Germany
In 1940, when German forces were storming Europe, Belgium officials decided to send the altarpiece to Vatican City to keep it safe during the Second World War.
While the painting was on the way to the Vatican, but still within the borders of France, Italy declared war as an Axis power.
The painting was then stored in a museum in Pau, a commune overlooking the Pyrenees.
A deal was struck that required the consent of French, Belgian and German military officials for the painting to be moved again.
In 1942, the deal was thrown out when Adolf Hitler ordered the painting to be moved to the Schloss Neuschwanstein Castle Bavaria.
An internal feud between Hitler and Hermann Goring led to the painting changing hands in a spy-versus-spy situation, before Hitler ultimately had his way.
There has been great speculation about why the Nazi leadership had such a fascination with claiming the piece for themselves with explanations ranging from the realistic to the fantastical.
One popular rumour (straight out of an Indiana Jones plot) was that the altarpiece contained a map to lost Catholic treasures, including the Crown of Thorns, the Holy Grail and the Spear of Longinus.
After the tide of the war turned and Allied bombing campaigns rumbled overhead, the castle was deemed no longer safe for the artwork.
The altarpiece was moved deep into the Altaussee salt mines.
The conditions of the salt mine caused vast damage to the paint and varnish.
After the war, the famous Monument Men, an Allied taskforce assigned to returning stolen art, recovered the altarpiece and returned it to Ghent where it has lived ever since.
Many programs to restore the painting were run and many have revealed intriguing properties long hidden by previously botched restorations.
One notable program in January 2020 revealed the original face of the Lamb of God to have unusually humanoid features.
The van Eyck brothers painted the eyes of the Lamb to look straight at the viewer.
Knowing who those eyes belong to, there is something poetic about what they have seen: the face of a disgusted emperor and thieves in the night, the villains of fascism and guardians of the sacred, sinners in earnest and saints in the making.
As the Gospel of John reminds us, “Jesus knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.” (John 2:24-25)
It’s a fitting tribute to a Lamb who looks inside only to offer redemption in return, regardless of what he sees.
