Diptyque de la Crucifixion et du Jugement dernier

Two narrow panels, barely 57 cm high, hold the whole world: Calvary on one, heaven and hell on the other. And in the sky above the crosses, the first known realistic Moon in painting.

The story behind the painting

The two small panels are attributed to Jan van Eyck, with some areas finished by unidentified followers or workshop members. They were probably made for private devotion. Most scholars, judging by technique and the figures' dress, see them as late works painted in the early 1430s and finished after his death, while others date them to the early 1420s and blame the weaker passages on a younger painter's inexperience. When the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired them in 1933 they were given to his brother Hubert.

What to look for

Each panel is just 56.5 by 19.7 cm. On the left, read from bottom to top: John holds the swooning Virgin wrapped in blue, Mary Magdalene raises her arms with clenched fingers and is the only one of the group looking at Christ, then a packed crowd of soldiers and onlookers, then three crosses high against a foreboding sky with Jerusalem beyond. Find the waning Moon: it is the first known naturalistic Moon, with features such as the Mare Imbrium. On the right, hell at the base, the resurrected in the middle, Christ in Majesty with saints above. Greek, Latin and Hebrew inscriptions appear, and the original gilt frames carry Bible passages.

Meaning and intent

Crucifixions were usually horizontal, so van Eyck had to redesign the scene to fit the tall format of the Judgement, stacking episodes in a continuous slope like a medieval tapestry. The historian Jeffrey Chipps Smith says the episodes appear simultaneous, not sequential. Otto Pächt called it the whole world in one painting. Scholars still disagree whether these were wings of a lost triptych or a true diptych: Panofsky argued for a diptych, and technical examination supports that, but Pächt thinks the evidence is not enough to decide.

Legacy

The earliest surviving mention dates from 1841, when scholars thought the panels were wings of a lost triptych. According to a date written in Russian on the back, they were transferred to canvas in 1867. The Metropolitan Museum of Art bought them in 1933. Along with Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden, van Eyck changed Northern European painting, and this diptych is counted among the early oil masterpieces of the Northern Renaissance.