Madonna of Chancellor Rolin

The Madonna of Chancellor Rolin is an oil painting by the Early Netherlandish master Jan van Eyck, dating from around 1435. It is kept in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and was commissioned by Nicolas Rolin, chancellor of the Duchy of Burgundy, whose votive portrait takes up the left side of the picture, for his parish church, Notre-Dame-du-Chastel in Autun, where it remained until the church burnt down in 1793. After a period in Autun Cathedral, it was moved to the Louvre in 1805.

The scene depicts the Virgin Mary crowned by a hovering Angel while she presents the Infant Jesus to Rolin. It is set within a spacious Italian-style loggia with a rich decoration of columns and bas-reliefs. In the background is a landscape with a city on a river, probably intended to be Autun in Burgundy, Rolin's hometown. A wide range of well detailed palaces, churches, an island, a towered bridge, hills and fields is portrayed, subject to a uniform light. Perhaps some of the Chancellor's many landholdings around Autun are included in the vista. A haze covers a mountain range in the far distance. As in many Early Netherlandish paintings, the steepness of the hills and mountains is shown as much greater than that found locally, for dramatic effect.

The small garden with many flowers identifiable (including lilies, irises, paeonies and roses), visible just outside the columns, symbolizes Mary's virtues. Beyond, two male figures wearing chaperons are looking through the crenellations of what looks to be a fortified balcony or bridge. There has been speculation that they may represent van Eyck and an assistant, after the pattern of his Arnolfini Portrait. The figure on the right wears a similar red chaperon to the probable van Eyck self-portrait in the National Gallery, London. Near to them are two peacocks, symbols both of immortality and of pride, to which even a powerful man as Rolin might succumb.

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