Rude Madonnas
The Melun Madonna
Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels (Right panel of The Melun Diptyche)
Oil on Oak panel, 94.5 X 85.5 cm, Koninklijk Museum, Antwerp, Belgium
Painted by Jean Fouquet (French Renaissance), dated approximately 1452
"The Madonna is an arresting figure, with one breast bare, in front of a throne surrounded by blue and red angels representing night and day. She has the bulging shaved forehead fashionable at this period. The blanche-white skin, crown of stars, and pearls decorating the throne show Mary in her role as Queen of Heaven. The bare breast is abnormally placed and the waspish waste exaggerated, which separates the Virgin's image from more naturalised portrayals of nudity. This, along with the vivid colouring and her extreme beauty, gives the picture a strangely modern feel."
(p. 92, Mary Cooch in 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die, Pier9, 2016)
"She almost seems to be leaning against the throne. Although, if she were leaning, it would be difficult to keep the child on her lap. So there's something strange going on there, indeed ...
['This is a Virgo Lactans, it's Mary giving the breast to Jesus, who doesn't seem to be very interested by it, who seems to be more interested in pointing towards Etienne Chevalier (in the opposing Left panel of the original diptych)' ... 'Usually Mary is holding her breast for the Christ child. Christ is shown actively nursing. Sometimes he's shown turning away from the breast and engaging the viewer. And here, the lack of connection seems unusual'] ...
There is undeniably an erotic element in this painting, also if you look at the shape of her breast. But she's not breastfeeding Christ, she's rather more showing her own beauty, the beauty of her pale skin, of the roundness of her breast ..."
(Video transcript, Dr Samuel Mareel, Senior Curator of 15th and 16th century Art, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp).
"The Madonna is depicted here as the Queen of Heaven, and the painting is meant to reveal her as between the veil of heaven and earth. She is both human and otherworldly ... In the case of the Right panel, the figures are so smooth they appear to be polished."
(Wikipedia, citing Schaeffer Fouquet, Jean, and Hagen & Hagen What Great Paintings Say)
The Melun Diptych
Exhibition history: Exposition des primitifs francais, Site Richelieu-Louvois, 12 April 1904 ― 14 July 1904.
"As the original master of the French Renaissance, Jean Fouquet (c.1420-1481) trained in the Italian tradition. He studied in Florence and Rome but returned to France where he excelled at naturalistic portraiture ― his subjects included his patron Etienne Chevalier and Charles VII of France. Chevalier commissioned Fouquet to paint The Melun Diptych for the church at his home in Melun. The left-handed panel depicts Chevalier with Saint Stephen and is now housed in Staatliche Museum, Berlin. The right-hand panel, The Melun Madonna, is said to be modelled after Agnes Sorel, mistress of Charles VII, who was also loved by Chevalier."
(As above, M Cooch 2016)
"The name of this diptych came from its original home in the Collegiate Church of Notre Dame in Melun ['41 kms SE of Paris. The town was liberated for the Dauphin, later Charles VII of France, by Joan of Arc on 17 April 1430'] ... Etienne Chevalier commissioned the Melun diptych to hang over his wife Catharine Bude's tomb."
(As above, Wikipedia)
"... we have several paintings from Jean Fouquet that came down to us, but most of his works that came down to us are manuscript paintings ... there's a version of Mary holding Christ and of Etienne Chevalier with Saint Stephen also in a manuscript , The Hours of Etienne Chevalier."
(As above, Curator Mareel)
The Hours of Etienne Chevalier
The hours of Etienne Chevalier by Jean Fouquet, from 15th century manuscript on vellum
(40 illuminated sheets, 21 X 15 cm)
Manuscript 71, Musee Conde, Chantilly, Institut De France.
A comparison of Jean Fouquet's Melun Diptych and his similar double paged arrangement for Chevalier's Book of Hours reveals two differences. The first goes to relevant dating. Like the diptych, the left-hand illumination shows the patron-donor Etienne Chevalier with his patron-saint Saint Stephen gazing towards the right panel containing Virgin Mary and the Christ Child.
While Chevalier is painted in a similar attitude towards the Virgin, "his face has aged by a good ten years. His skin is more wrinkled, his nose more pointed and his lips thinner." But "time has left no mark on the features of the patron saint; his left hand tenderly rests on the chancellor's shoulder." (Emil Kren & David Marx, Web Gallery of Art, <wga.hu>, 1996).
In other words, real time has moved on for the human in the picture. He is no longer the smoother-complexioned man who posed for the diptych painting. This suggests that when the Book of Hours was commissioned it was no longer 1452 (when the death of Charles VII's mistress Agnes Sorel in 1450 was still a recent memory).
The second point of observable difference follows on from the implications of the first. As chronological time had moved on, so had political and religious circumstances. The image of Mary and Child on the right-hand page of the Book of Hours has clearly reverted to the conventional version of Virgo Lactans. The tradition of Mary as the nursing mother of Jesus, respectably exposing a minimum of breast to a fully engaged infant, is restored. The baby boy is quite naturally suckling at his mother's breast. Admittedly she still appears to be a grand lady, crowned and seated on a raised platform within a richly ornamented portal, but no interpretation of blatant sexuality or exhibitionism is being promoted by the scene. This Madonna is adored by a crowd of altogether more seemly, demure and worshipful angels.
One inference to be taken from this is that what may have been permissible ten years before was no longer so. King Charles is dead (d. 1461) and his son Louis XI was no fan of the King's mistresses even when he was Dauphin. Chevalier did manage to retain his position as finance minister to the crown, but perhaps he too had no wish to revisit the scandal aroused by the Melun Madonna a decade before.
However, it is proper to note that art historians have sometimes analysed Fouquet's work with less emphasis on its immediate context. An alternative view is that the Melun Madonna was not an aberration, an exception from the cultural (Catholic) rule, so much as it was an exemplary of a particular aspect of Marian adoration. They refer to her religious power.
'Double Intercessions'
The Intercession of Christ and the Virgin Christ and the Virgin Interceding for Humanity
Early 15th Century c.1402 Late 15th Century c. 1490
by Lorenzo Monaco (Piero di Giovanni) by Gherardo di Giovanni del Flora
Metropolitan Museum, New York Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
The Intercession of Christ and the Virgin
"A study of the nursing motif by Beth Williamson argues that the most important message carried by the lactans motif, up until the early fifteenth century at least, was the Virgin's power. According to Williamson, the power that Mary expresses in her ability to bear and nourish Christ primarily symbolizes her role in his incarnation and her [consequent] power of intercession with Christ on behalf of the salvation of mankind.
Indeed, Mary's power was an important element of the message conveyed by images of Mary suckling Christ ... This was a concept which was given explicit artistic expression in the very early Quattrocento [1400s] in an anonymous [sic] painting which was originally in Florence Cathedral. Here Mary, dressed in white, the colour of her milk, indicates [holds] her breast and points to a group of supplicants (probably a family and presumably the patrons of the work) as she looks toward Christ. The words which flow across the image from her to him read
'Dolciximo Figliuolo Pellae : Abbi Mio (Misericordia) di Chostoro'
Dear son, because of the milk that I gave you, have mercy on them,
the implication being that he cannot refuse his mother who breastfed him. Christ meanwhile, draped in red, the colour of his blood (and wine), looks toward God the Father above, and indicates his wound and his mother's breast. His inscription reads
'Padre Mio Sieno Salvi Chostoro Pequali Tu : Volesti Chio Patissie Passione'
My father, let those be saved for whom you wished me to suffer the passion,
(... example of the double intercession).
This power of intercession was extended to Mary, in her role as Madonna Mediatrix, quite early in Christianity and by the later Middle Ages was well established and often associated with the symbol of her lactating breast, presumably because of the historical power of that symbol."
(Anne Ashton, 2006, 'Interpreting Breast Iconography in Italian Art 1250-1600', PhD Thesis)
Together these two religious paintings, created separately in 1402 and 1490, book-end the 15th century that produced the Melun Madonna (in 1452). The theme and subjects portrayed in the first of these 'Double Intercessions' are replicated in the latter version. Christ bares his wounds. Mary bares her breast. Both are displaying the evidence of their respective powers of intercession.
Christ and the Virgin Mary Interceding for Humanity
"At the center of the composition, Christ is positioned on the left kneeling and gesturing in supplication towards God the Father above, his pose dynamic yet reverent as he presents his wounds to plead for humanity. On the right, the Virgin kneels symmetrically, her hands clasped in prayer [sic], her figure oriented to complement Christ's while directing attention heavenward. These central figures dominate the middle ground, framed by ethereal clouds that isolate them as intercessors.
In the foreground, a saint ― likely St. Bernard of Clairvaux ― is depicted in a moment of ecstasy [sic], receiving a stream of milk from Mary's breast in the lactation motif, his monastic habit and rapt expression anchoring the human element at the composition's base."
(Grokipedia v0.2, 'Christ and the Virgin Mary Interceding for Humanity: Description, Composition and Figures)
['In the foreground is a saint, probably Bernard of Clairvaux ... the Virgin's breast recalls The Lactation of St Bernard' ― Wikipedia Commons]
The Lactation of Saint Bernard
"The Cistercian abbot St Bernard of Clairvaux, who had a deep impact on Franciscan spirituality, had a vision in which he tasted the Virgin's milk. While he was praying in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary in St. Vorles at Chatillon-sur-Seine, in pronouncing the verses 'show yourself a mother' (monstra te essen matrem) the Virgin pressed milk from her breast towards his mouth, gifting him with religious wisdom."
('The Iconography of the Madonna Lactans in the Thirteenth and Sixteenth Centuries Italian Art', Dissertation Tuscany DEF, <sas-space.sas.ac.uk>, p. 9)
The Lactation of Etienne Chevalier
(When the Melun Diptych is closed, the donor's mouth meets the Melun Madonna's breast ―
see below)
"At the beginning of 2019, Fouquet's Madonna underwent a thorough study at the J Paul Getty Museum and Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles ...
1. Infrared images reveal that Jean Fouquet made remarkably few changes as he worked on his masterpiece : there is virtually no difference between the thoroughly worked out underdrawing and the final paint layers ...
2a. Macro X-ray fluorescence scanning (MA-XRF) ... A layer of lead white was detected between the ground and the finishing layer ... gold-coloured details like the Madonna's crown were painted with a pigment containing lead and tin. The Madonna herself was painted in white lead ...
2b. Fibre Optics Reflectance Spectroscopy (FORS) ... Fouquet applied an organic red paint to Mary's cheeks and lips. Something else that stood out was the huge amount of ultramarine the artist used. This pigment was made from ground lapis lazuli, a semi-precious stone imported from Afghanistan, which was often used in the depiction of divine subjects during the Renaissance ...
4. Motorised easel and the use of perspective ... Viewed straight on, it feels like the seraphim and cherubim are holding up the throne while the Madonna leans against it. She doesn't look terribly comfortable ... [but] it was originally intended as an altar-piece ... best when viewed from below ... The perspective kicks in at a height of 183 cm to show the Madonna sitting comfortably on her throne."
(KMSKA 2021, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen. The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp)
" In his Melun Diptych Jean Fouquet engages in a hitherto unnoticed game of hide-and-seek that can only be revealed when the two panels of the diptych are opened and closed ... The diptych was meant to be opened and closed ... diptychs in particular, are repeatedly connected and separated by their hinge, thus making the operation of their panels an act of interacting with images ... 'whose true potential only unfolds in the hands of its owners, in a close-up tactile form of reception that is the exact opposite of any distanced viewing of rigid picture hangings, which the museum [or church wall]seems to impose' ...
Closing the panel completely altered its message ... When the panels are closed and Saint Stephen has led the donor toward the Virgin Mary ... the lacing of her blue robe is open, revealing her full [milky-white] left breast, whose nipple and areola are suggested in delicate pink ... Once the left panel is closed and the movement completed, thus uniting the double image pair into a 'sandwich image', the donor kneels in the folds of Mary's widely opened cloak and is nursed by her; the two wings unite in a lactation ...
The composition of the panels, as the [infrared reflectography image] shows, was executed by Fouquet in such a way that the donor's lips almost touch Mary's areola and nipple ... Art-historical analysis has revealed that both Etienne Chevalier's head and that of Saint Stephen were corrected by Fouquet even though that section of the panel was almost complete. The donor's head was moved forward and the saint's was subtly corrected to the left. The minimal forward adjustments that Fouquet made to the donor's ... [are] so that the two image points could meet precisely.
The movement of Mary ... as she seems either to sit on the sedes sapientiae or rise from it, becomes, as soon as she has the donor to her breast, a leaning towards the Chevalier, the recipient of her nourishment."
(Monja Schunemann, 2022, 'STILLING DEVOTION: (In)visible folding effects in Jean Fouquet's dyptych by Melun', <schlaufen-verlog.de/blog/stillende-andacht>)
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