Object data
oil on panel
support: height 120 cm × width 77 cm
sight size: height 111.3 cm × width 68 cm
Pierre Coustain (attributed to)
Shield of Edward IV (1442-83), King of England, in his Capacity as Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece
c. 1481
Inscriptions
- inscription, top and bottom: Tres hault Et Tres puissant // Prince Edowart Par la Grace // De dieu Roy dengletre Et Seignr Dyrlande. (Most High and Most Mighty Prince Edward, by the grace Of God, King of England and Lord of Ireland)
- coat of arms, coat of arms: quartered, 1 and 4, three gold fleurs-de-lis, two above one, on a white field; 2 and 3, three gold lions passant guardant on a red field. Crest: a lion. The shield set within the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece
Technical notes
The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks (measured in the frame: 16.5, 23.8 and 27.2 cm) and is fixed in the original frame (sight size: 111.3 x 68 cm). On the reverse there is gradual bevelling on all sides. The nine horizontal blocks applied to reinforce the joins were all added later. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1468. The panel could have been ready for use by 1479, but a date in or after 1493 is more likely. Since the panel is still in its original frame, it is not clear whether the white ground (which is visible in lacunae) extends to the edges or whether the remains of a barbe are still present. There is no underdrawing visible to the naked eye nor with infrared reflectography. Most of the golden heraldic elements seem to have been created with gold leaf on top of an underlying layer of bolus. These elements were reserved in the black background. On top of the golden areas the artist applied a linear system of contours and hatchings in black, red (possibly a red lake) and brown paint. Like the heraldic elements, the golden letters seem to have been reserved.
Scientific examination and reports
- condition report: G. Tauber, RMA, 25 September 2006
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 12 January 2007
Condition
Fair. Apart from abrasion, there are many small paint losses through flaking in the black background which have been carefully retouched.
Conservation
- H.H. Mertens, 1966
- H.H. Mertens, 1967: planks and frame reglued
- G. Boevé-Jones, January 2002: complete restoration
Original framing
This frame (fig. e) and the one surrounding Shield of Jacob of Luxemburg (SK-A-4642) are identical, and both are well preserved. A cross-section of the profile shows a narrow tenia, a scotia, a bevel and bead forming a round sight edge (fig. a). The sill has a bevelled sight edge (fig. b). The outside and the tenia are painted red; the profiles on the side and top members, as well as the bevelled sight edge of the sill, are gilded. On the back the panel has bevelled edges and fits snugly in the closed rebate. The bottom corners are connected with mortise and tenon joints (fig. c). The top corners have mitred, open mortise and tenon joints, and the tenon of each top joint has a reverse tapering (fig. d). Carpenter’s marks indicating the location of the mortises are scribed in the back of the frame. The top and bottom corners are secured with dowels. There are also coarser markings scratched into the back of the frame which do not seem to relate to the construction. Markings on the reverse indicate that the frame was originally mounted with a single hanging device.
Provenance
Placed in the choir of the St Jan’s Cathedral, ’s-Hertogenbosch, on the occasion of the 14th chapter of the Order of the Golden Fleece, 1481;1 public sale, St Jan’s Cathedral, ’s-Hertogenbosch, 4 June 1798;2 …; ? estate inventory, Andreas J.L. van den Bogaerde van Terbrugge (1787-1855), Kasteel Heeswijk, 1855, no. 438 (‘elf verschillende wapenborden’);3 his sons, Louis M.C. (1826-74) and D.T. Albéric (1829-95), Huis de Nemerlaer, Haaren;4 their sale, ’s-Hertogenbosch (Van der Does de Willebois), 26 March 1896 sqq., fl. 691.37, with SK-A-4642, to the museum;5 on loan to the Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch, since 1987
Object number: SK-A-4641
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Pierre Coustain (active in Bruges and Brussels c. 1453-87)
Pierre Coustain, painter and varlet de chambre to the Burgundian court, was active in Bruges and Brussels during the second half of the 15th century. He served under both Philip the Good and Charles the Bold, and subsequently received commissions from Mary of Burgundy and her husband Maximilian I of Austria. His first documented commission for the Burgundian court was for painted decorations at a banquet held in Lille in 1453. Coustain is known to have painted works for the chapters of the Order of the Golden Fleece held in 1456, 1461, 1468, 1473, 1478 and 1481, and for other court festivities, among them the wedding celebrations of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York in 1468. He was also commissioned to paint banners, polychrome statues, and even repair a gold clock. Although he was never granted official membership in the Bruges painters’ guild, his name and the epithet ‘der princen scildere’ (the painter of princes) are inscribed in the guild’s memorial book under 1487, the presumed year of his death.
References
De Laborde I, 1849, nos. 1570, 1816, 1839, 1868, 1899, 1933, 1985, 1999, II, 1851, pp. XII, 332, nos. 4039, 4041, 4732, 4879, 4896, 4899; Coninckx 1907, pp. 67-70; De Lettenhove et al. 1908, I, pp. 221-22; Thieme/Becker VII, 1912, pp. 600-01; Schouteet 1989, pp. 152-58; Gruben 1997, pp. 237, 273-276, 290, 294, 308, 327, 339, 358, 367, nos. 218, 232, 240, 250, 251, 252, 258, 292, 331, 336; Châtelet in Saur XXII, 1999, pp. 14-15; Van der Velden 2000, pp. 38-40; Bücken in Bücken/Steyaert 2013, pp. 120-21
(Marissa Bass)
Entry
This shield and the other shown in SK-A-4642 are those of Edward IV, King of England, and Jacob of Luxemburg, Lord of Fiennes. They represent both men in their capacity as knights of the Order of the Golden Fleece. A shield was made for each knight for every chapter meeting of the order. The shields were then typically hung in the choir of the church where the meeting took place, above the seats of the men whom they represented. The two examples in the Rijksmuseum’s collection, in all likelihood painted by Pierre Coustain, were made for the 14th chapter of the order held in St Jan’s Cathedral in ’s-Hertogenbosch in May 1481.6
Both shields adhere to the standard format used for such panels, as shown by others preserved in Bruges, Mechelen and elsewhere. The individual’s coat of arms appears in the centre, surrounded by the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece and surmounted by a helmet and a crest particular to the individual, a crowned lion for Edward and a dragon for Jacob. Fluttering pennants (ermine and gold for Edward; red and grey for Jacob) surround the helmet and shield, and inscriptions along the upper and lower portions of the panels identify their subjects by name and title.7
Edward IV, who was crowned King of England on 28 June 1461, was inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece during the chapter meeting convened in Bruges’s Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk in 1468.8 He was nominated by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, the reigning sovereign of the order, who hoped to strengthen Burgundy’s political alliance with England.9 Jacob of Luxemburg, who served as an advisory chamberlain to both Charles the Bold and Maximilian I of Austria, was inducted into the order during the chapter held in Bruges’s St Salvator’s Cathedral in 1478.10
Neither Edward nor Jacob actually attended the chapter held in St Jan’s Cathedral in 1481. Only six knights were present at this meeting, which was held under the somewhat contested leadership of Maximilian.11 Preparations for the ceremony within the cathedral were nevertheless elaborate. Not only were the choir stalls enlarged and embellished, but it also seems quite likely that the angels painted in the vaults of the choir, whose trumpets bear the arms of the house of Burgundy, were added at this time or shortly afterwards.12 Both panels were hung in the choir of the church on the left side, Edward’s in the first position nearest to the high altar (indicating his high rank) and Jacob’s in the 14th position, closer to the nave.13 The entire series was still hanging in the church two centuries later when Ambrosius Vissers was commissioned to restore all the panels, a project he completed between 1690 and 1695.14
Today, only the two shields in the Rijksmuseum and two others in a private collection survive from the series painted for the chapter in ’s-Hertogenbosch.15 Most of the panels were lost after 1798, when they were sold at a public auction instigated by the authorities of the Batavian revolution.16 The Rijksmuseum shields were purchased by the museum in 1896 from the famous medieval art collection of Van den Bogaerde van Terbrugge at Kasteel Heeswijk.17
It is worth mentioning the striking similarity between the calligraphy employed on these shields and that in Jheronimus Bosch’s painting The Stone Operation in Madrid.18 The parallel has led Koldeweij to speculate that Coustain himself may have inscribed the text on Bosch’s painting.19 The shields that Coustain painted for St Jan’s Cathedral were probably the most immediate model for Bosch’s composition.
(Marissa Bass)
Literature
Kuyer 1981, pp. 74-86; Peeters 1985, pp. 353-54; Koldeweij in ’s-Hertogenbosch 1990, pp. 106-07; Koldeweij 1990a, p. 366; Koldeweij 1991, pp. 20-29
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 328, nos. 2971, 2972 (as Anonymous, second half 15th century); 1934, p. 370, nos. 2971, 2972; 1976, p. 824, nos. A 4641, A 4642
Citation
M. Bass, 2010, 'attributed to Pierre Coustain, Shield of Edward IV (1442-83), King of England, in his Capacity as Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, c. 1481', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.10529
(accessed 22 November 2024 22:31:55).Figures
fig. e Shield of Edward IV (1442-83), King of England, in his capacity as knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, c. 1481
fig. a Rendering of the profile of the vertical and top members of the frame (width 46 mm)
fig. b Rendering of the profile of the bottom member of the frame (width 46 mm)
fig. c Rendering of the construction of the bottom corners of the frame
fig. d Diagram of the construction of the top corners of the frame