The Wilton Diptych
Encyclopedia
The Wilton Diptych is a small portable diptych
of two hinged panels, painted on both sides. It is an extremely rare survival of a late Medieval religious panel painting
from England. The diptych was painted for King Richard II of England
who is depicted kneeling before the Virgin and Child in what is known as a votive portrait. The painting is an outstanding example of the International Gothic
style, and the nationality of the unknown artist is probably French or English. It belongs to the National Gallery
, London.
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The painting is in tempera
, the ground paint being mixed with egg white and laid in thin glazes. The background and many details are inlaid with gold leaf
and in places the panel has been tooled beneath the gilding to enhance the decorative quality. In the panel with the Virgin and Christ Child, the garments are universally blue, the pigment coming from the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli
. Richard's robe uses vermilion
, another expensive pigment. Some colours have faded; the roses in the angels' hair would originally have been a much deeper pink, and the green grass of the outer hart panel is now much darker than when painted.
Though the figures of the two inner scenes face each other, and interact by gaze and gesture, they are set in different backgrounds. The human figures are on bare rocky ground, with a forest behind, and a gold leaf "sky" decorated with a pattern made by a metal punch. The heavenly figures stand in a flowery meadow, behind which is a gold background patterned by a different punch.
In the left inner panel the kneeling King Richard II is presented by the Saints John the Baptist
, Edward the Confessor
and Edmund the Martyr
, each holding their attribute
. In the right hand panel the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child in her arms is surrounded by eleven angels, against a golden background and field of delicately coloured flowers.
Richard's outer robe is of cloth of gold
and red vermilion, the fabric decorated with his personal device of the white hart
s and sprigs of rosemary
, the emblem of his wife Anne of Bohemia
, who died in 1394. Around his neck is a gold collar
with broomscods, seed-pods of Cytisus scoparius
, the common broom, which is the planta genista which gave Richard's Plantagenet dynasty its name. They were also the emblem of Charles VI of France
, whose daughter he married in 1396. Richard had been given such a collar by Charles in 1393, and wearing one here may indicate a date for the work after Richard's second marriage to the six-year-old Isabella of Valois in 1396. The livery badges worn by both Richard and the angels appear to be made in the fashionable and expensive technique of ronde bosse white enamel
on gold; they are comparable to the surviving Dunstable Swan Jewel
, probably given by one of Richard's cousins in the House of Lancaster
. Richard's badge, but not those of the angels, has pearls tipping the antlers, and may perhaps be based on one of several examples recorded in his treasure roll of 1397, which had pearls and a bed of emerald
s for the hind to sit on. A hart badge of Richard's inventoried in the possession of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy
in 1435 was set with 22 pearls, two spinel
s, two sapphire
s, a ruby and a huge diamond.
Although thematically linked, the composition of the two pictures is quite different in feeling. The scene of Richard and his patrons is very sedate, but full of rich contrasts in colour and texture. The scene of the Virgin and Child is full of energetic movement created by the angels who encircle the mother and child. The predominant brilliant blue gives a precious quality, symbolising the heavenly nature of this apparition. The flowery ground also symbolises the gardens of Paradise
. The strong tonal contrast of the angel's wings throw the figures into relief against the background.
When closed, the diptych reveals on one side a white hart or stag, Richard's emblem
"gorged" with a golden coronet around its throat and a golden chain, "lodged" (the heraldic term for sitting) on a grassy meadow with branches of Anne's rosemary, with a gold "sky". On the other is a coat of arms with arms associated with King Edward the Confessor impaled with the arms of the Kings of England. These arms were adopted by Richard in about 1395. The arms of Edward were a later invention, as coats-of-arms had not been invented in the eleventh century when he lived.
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The identity of the kneeling king is certain because he and the angels surrounding the Virgin are wearing badges with Richard's livery
, the White Hart, which also appears in the brocade of the left panel and the outside of the diptych. As Richard kneels, the Christ Child reaches towards him in benediction
and also reaches towards the pennant
held by an angel, and significantly placed between them. This pennant is the symbol of Richard's kingship and of the Kingdom of England as a whole. It bears the Cross of St. George, the symbol of England, and surmounting the staff is an orb on which is a tiny map of England, or Ireland, where Richard was campaigning in 1394–95. The probable sense is that the pennant has just been presented by Richard. The liveried angels, iconographically very unusual, are a strangely precise anticipation of the lines from Shakespeare's Richard II
of two hundred years later:
It is possible that Shakespeare had seen the picture, then still in the Royal Collection
.
Apparently beginning relatively harmlessly in the reign of Richard's grandfather Edward III
in a context of tournament
s and courtly celebrations, by Richard's reign livery badges had come to be seen as a social menace, and were "one of the most protracted controversies of Richard's reign", as they were used to denote the small private armies of retainers kept by lords, largely for the purpose of enforcing their lord's will on the less powerful in his area. Though they were surely a symptom rather than a cause of both local baronial bullying and the disputes between the king and his uncles and other lords, Parliament repeatedly tried to curb the use of livery badges. The issuing of badges by lords was attacked in the Parliament of 1384, and in 1388 they made the startling request that "all liveries called badges [signes], as well of our lord the king as of other lords ... shall be abolished", because "those who wear them are flown with such insolent arrogance that they do not shrink from practising with reckless effrontery various kinds of extortion in the surrounding countryside ... and it is certainly the boldness inspired by these badges that makes them unafraid to do these things". Richard offered to give up his own badges, to the delight of the House of Commons of England
, but the House of Lords
refused to give up theirs, and the matter was put off. In 1390 it was ordered that no one below the rank of banneret should issue badges, and no one below the rank of esquire
wear them. The issue was apparently quiet for a few years, but from 1397 Richard issued increasingly large numbers of badges to retainers who misbehaved (his "Cheshire archers" being especially notorious), and in the Parliament of 1399, after his deposition, several of his leading supporters were forbidden from issuing "badges of signes" again, and a statute was passed allowing only the king (now Henry IV) to issue badges, and only to those ranking as esquires and above, who were only to wear them in his presence. In the end it took a determined campaign by Henry VII
to largely stamp out the use of livery badges by others than the king, and reduce them to things normally worn only by household servants.
All three saints who present the kneeling Richard to the Virgin and Child are believed to have been venerated by the king, as each has his own chapel in Westminster Abbey
. Each saint holds the symbolic attribute by which they are recognised in art. Edmund the Martyr, who stands to the left, holds the arrow which killed him in 869, while Edward the Confessor, at the centre, holds the ring he gave to a pilgrim who transpired to be the disguised John the Evangelist
. John the Baptist (right) holds his symbol, the Lamb of God
.
The scene makes reference to King Richard's birth on 6 January, the feast of Epiphany, when Christ was adored by three kings, often depicted in similar compositions to this. At this date the feast of the Baptism of Christ by John the Baptist was celebrated on the same day and the figure of John in his usual hermit's dress, carrying a lamb, recalls the shepherds, whose visit after the birth of Christ
was often combined in the same scene as the visit of the Magi or three kings. There was also a story that Richard's birth in Bordeaux
in France
was attended by the Kings of Spain, Navarre, and Portugal.
John the Baptist was Richard's patron saint
, and Saint Edward and Saint Edmund had both been English kings. Richard had a special devotion to Edmund, who with St. George is one of the patron saints of England.
The date of the Wilton Diptych has been the subject of considerable controversy among art historians. The National Gallery follow a broad current consensus in dating the painting to the last five years of Richard's reign, but dates between 1377 and about 1413 have been proposed. Richard was born in 1367, and the portrait seems to be of a younger man than the twenty-eight-year-old he was in 1395. It has been suggested that the eleven angels each represent a year of his age at the start of his actual reign, which began in 1377, when he gave eleven of the coins called angels
to "Our Lady of the Pew" at Westminster Abbey
. The painting would then have been made more than fifteen years later to commemorate the moment. Alternatively the painting might represent Richard's reception into heaven after his death in 1399, though given the circumstances of his deposition, who would have commissioned such a work in the next reign is unclear.
The problem of the unusual number of angels has still not found an ultimate solution. It should be noted that it is in obvious contradiction with the iconography of the heavenly court of the Virgin, because in medieval iconography the number eleven has extremely negative symbolism. Considering the Biblical exegesis and medieval number symbolism, a possible interpretation of the enigmatic number of angels can be found in the Biblical motif of the second dream of young Joseph
(Genesis 37:9) in which the number eleven exceptionally has a positive meaning because it implicates the celestial twelve. The sun, the moon and eleven stars that in Joseph's dream are bowing down to him are completed by Joseph himself, who according to medieval exegesis is to be taken for a twelfth star. Having in mind the historical evidence of Richard II's personal regal iconography of the anointed king and the documented Biblical allusions, it seems that the motif of youthful Joseph honoured in his dream by the sun, representing the Christ, the moon, representing the Virgin and eleven stars representing his brothers offers a significant parallel to the vision of the heavenly court with Jesus Christ, the Virgin and eleven angelic courtiers appearing in front of the eyes of King Richard II.
The painting is indicative of both Richard's belief in his divine right
to rule and his genuine Christian
devotion. It also importantly symbolises (in the form of the Pennant), Richard II giving his kingdom into the hands of the Holy Virgin, thereby continuing a long tradition by which England was known as "Our Lady's Dowry
" and was thought to be specially under her protection. Another painting, now lost, showed Richard and Anne offering the Virgin an orb
representing England, with the inscription "This is your dowry, O Holy Virgin, wherefore, O Mary, may you rule over it".
The artist, sometimes referred to as the "Wilton Master", has never been identified, or associated with other panel paintings, and the closest resemblances to his style come in some illuminated manuscript
s from the 1410s. At this period it was common in Northern Europe for panel paintings, still made in very small numbers, to be made by artists with a background in illumination. The date of the painting, at a time when the International Gothic style was at its most similar in several courts in Europe, makes identifying the nationality of its painter more difficult. It is possible that the painter was English
, but apart from the Westminster portrait of Richard, now unlike the Diptych much overpainted, there are too few comparable works to establish in what style the recorded English painters worked.
The artist has been proposed as coming from "every possible nation", but France seems the most likely, with Italy another possibility, and some art historians point to the possibility of a Bohemian
artist, perhaps brought to England by Richard II's first wife, Anne of Bohemia
. The exquisite quality of the painting is thought by most art historians to indicate that the artist was probably from northern France. It shows similarities to the manuscript painting of Pol de Limbourg, but like the other surviving portrait of Richard, in Westminster Abbey, is also closely related in themes to paintings made in Prague
for Anne's father Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
and her brother Wenceslas, King of the Romans.
. It passed to the Earls of Pembroke
who kept it at Wilton House
, from which it takes its name, until it was bought by the National Gallery in 1929. That it remained intact is remarkable because little religious pictorial art survived the Puritan iconoclasm
that followed the execution of Charles I.
Diptych
A diptych di "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. Devices of this form were quite popular in the ancient world, wax tablets being coated with wax on inner faces, for recording notes and for measuring time and direction.In Late Antiquity, ivory diptychs with...
of two hinged panels, painted on both sides. It is an extremely rare survival of a late Medieval religious panel painting
Panel painting
A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, it was the normal form of support for a painting not on a wall or vellum, which was used for...
from England. The diptych was painted for King Richard II of England
Richard II of England
Richard II was King of England, a member of the House of Plantagenet and the last of its main-line kings. He ruled from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard was a son of Edward, the Black Prince, and was born during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III...
who is depicted kneeling before the Virgin and Child in what is known as a votive portrait. The painting is an outstanding example of the International Gothic
International Gothic
International Gothic is a phase of Gothic art which developed in Burgundy, Bohemia, France and northern Italy in the late 14th century and early 15th century...
style, and the nationality of the unknown artist is probably French or English. It belongs to the National Gallery
National gallery
The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...
, London.
Description
The Wilton Diptych is painted on two panels of Baltic oak, set in frames of the same material and joined by two hinges so that it may be closed to protect the inner painting. The inner faces of the panels are in excellent condition for their age, though some glazes have been lost, but the outer faces have paint losses from handling.Tempera
Tempera, also known as egg tempera, is a permanent fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigment mixed with a water-soluble binder medium . Tempera also refers to the paintings done in this medium. Tempera paintings are very long lasting, and examples from the 1st centuries AD still exist...
, the ground paint being mixed with egg white and laid in thin glazes. The background and many details are inlaid with gold leaf
Gold leaf
right|thumb|250px|[[Burnishing]] gold leaf with an [[agate]] stone tool, during the water gilding processGold leaf is gold that has been hammered into extremely thin sheets and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades...
and in places the panel has been tooled beneath the gilding to enhance the decorative quality. In the panel with the Virgin and Christ Child, the garments are universally blue, the pigment coming from the semi-precious stone lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli is a relatively rare semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense blue color....
. Richard's robe uses vermilion
Vermilion
Vermilion is an opaque orangish red pigment, similar to scarlet. As a naturally occurring mineral pigment, it is known as cinnabar, and was in use around the world before the Common Era began. Most naturally produced vermilion comes from cinnabar mined in China, and vermilion is nowadays commonly...
, another expensive pigment. Some colours have faded; the roses in the angels' hair would originally have been a much deeper pink, and the green grass of the outer hart panel is now much darker than when painted.
Though the figures of the two inner scenes face each other, and interact by gaze and gesture, they are set in different backgrounds. The human figures are on bare rocky ground, with a forest behind, and a gold leaf "sky" decorated with a pattern made by a metal punch. The heavenly figures stand in a flowery meadow, behind which is a gold background patterned by a different punch.
In the left inner panel the kneeling King Richard II is presented by the Saints John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
, Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor also known as St. Edward the Confessor , son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066....
and Edmund the Martyr
Edmund the Martyr
St Edmund the Martyr was a king of East Anglia, an Anglo-Saxon kingdom which today includes the English counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.D'Evelyn, Charlotte, and Mill, Anna J., , 1956. Reprinted 1967...
, each holding their attribute
Emblem
An emblem is a pictorial image, abstract or representational, that epitomizes a concept — e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory — or that represents a person, such as a king or saint.-Distinction: emblem and symbol:...
. In the right hand panel the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child in her arms is surrounded by eleven angels, against a golden background and field of delicately coloured flowers.
Richard's outer robe is of cloth of gold
Cloth of gold
Cloth of gold is a fabric woven with a gold-wrapped or spun weft - referred to as "a spirally spun gold strip". In most cases, the core yarn is silk wrapped with a band or strip of high content gold filé...
and red vermilion, the fabric decorated with his personal device of the white hart
White Hart
The White Hart was the personal emblem and livery of Richard II, who derived it from the arms of his mother, Joan "The Fair Maid of Kent", heiress of Edmund of Woodstock...
s and sprigs of rosemary
Rosemary
Rosemary, , is a woody, perennial herb with fragrant, evergreen, needle-like leaves and white, pink, purple or blue flowers, native to the Mediterranean region. It is a member of the mint family Lamiaceae, which includes many other herbs, and is one of two species in the genus Rosmarinus...
, the emblem of his wife Anne of Bohemia
Anne of Bohemia
Anne of Bohemia was Queen of England as the first wife of King Richard II. A member of the House of Luxembourg, she was the eldest daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and Elizabeth of Pomerania....
, who died in 1394. Around his neck is a gold collar
Livery collar
A livery collar or chain of office is a collar or heavy chain, usually of gold, worn as insignia of office or a mark of fealty or other association in Europe from the Middle Ages onwards....
with broomscods, seed-pods of Cytisus scoparius
Cytisus scoparius
Cytisus scoparius, the Common Broom and Scotch Broom, syn. Sarothamnus scoparius, is a perennial leguminous shrub native to western and central Europe,....
, the common broom, which is the planta genista which gave Richard's Plantagenet dynasty its name. They were also the emblem of Charles VI of France
Charles VI of France
Charles VI , called the Beloved and the Mad , was the King of France from 1380 to 1422, as a member of the House of Valois. His bouts with madness, which seem to have begun in 1392, led to quarrels among the French royal family, which were exploited by the neighbouring powers of England and Burgundy...
, whose daughter he married in 1396. Richard had been given such a collar by Charles in 1393, and wearing one here may indicate a date for the work after Richard's second marriage to the six-year-old Isabella of Valois in 1396. The livery badges worn by both Richard and the angels appear to be made in the fashionable and expensive technique of ronde bosse white enamel
Vitreous enamel
Vitreous enamel, also porcelain enamel in U.S. English, is a material made by fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing, usually between 750 and 850 °C...
on gold; they are comparable to the surviving Dunstable Swan Jewel
Dunstable Swan Jewel
The Dunstable Swan Jewel is a gold and enamel brooch in the form of a swan made in England or France in about 1400 and now in the British Museum...
, probably given by one of Richard's cousins in the House of Lancaster
House of Lancaster
The House of Lancaster was a branch of the royal House of Plantagenet. It was one of the opposing factions involved in the Wars of the Roses, an intermittent civil war which affected England and Wales during the 15th century...
. Richard's badge, but not those of the angels, has pearls tipping the antlers, and may perhaps be based on one of several examples recorded in his treasure roll of 1397, which had pearls and a bed of emerald
Emerald
Emerald is a variety of the mineral beryl colored green by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium. Beryl has a hardness of 7.5–8 on the 10 point Mohs scale of mineral hardness...
s for the hind to sit on. A hart badge of Richard's inventoried in the possession of Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy
Duchy of Burgundy
The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...
in 1435 was set with 22 pearls, two spinel
Spinel
Spinel is the magnesium aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula MgAl2O4. Balas ruby is an old name for a rose-tinted variety.-Spinel group:...
s, two sapphire
Sapphire
Sapphire is a gemstone variety of the mineral corundum, an aluminium oxide , when it is a color other than red or dark pink; in which case the gem would instead be called a ruby, considered to be a different gemstone. Trace amounts of other elements such as iron, titanium, or chromium can give...
s, a ruby and a huge diamond.
Paradise
Paradise is a place in which existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It is conceptually a counter-image of the miseries of human civilization, and in paradise there is only peace, prosperity, and happiness. Paradise is a place of contentment, but it is not necessarily a land of luxury and...
. The strong tonal contrast of the angel's wings throw the figures into relief against the background.
When closed, the diptych reveals on one side a white hart or stag, Richard's emblem
Emblem
An emblem is a pictorial image, abstract or representational, that epitomizes a concept — e.g., a moral truth, or an allegory — or that represents a person, such as a king or saint.-Distinction: emblem and symbol:...
"gorged" with a golden coronet around its throat and a golden chain, "lodged" (the heraldic term for sitting) on a grassy meadow with branches of Anne's rosemary, with a gold "sky". On the other is a coat of arms with arms associated with King Edward the Confessor impaled with the arms of the Kings of England. These arms were adopted by Richard in about 1395. The arms of Edward were a later invention, as coats-of-arms had not been invented in the eleventh century when he lived.
Iconography and date
Livery
A livery is a uniform, insignia or symbol adorning, in a non-military context, a person, an object or a vehicle that denotes a relationship between the wearer of the livery and an individual or corporate body. Often, elements of the heraldry relating to the individual or corporate body feature in...
, the White Hart, which also appears in the brocade of the left panel and the outside of the diptych. As Richard kneels, the Christ Child reaches towards him in benediction
Benediction
A benediction is a short invocation for divine help, blessing and guidance, usually at the end of worship service.-Judaism:...
and also reaches towards the pennant
Pennon
A pennon was one of the principal three varieties of flags carried during the Middle Ages . Pennoncells and streamers or pendants are considered as minor varieties of this style of flag. The pennon is a flag resembling the guidon in shape, but only half the size...
held by an angel, and significantly placed between them. This pennant is the symbol of Richard's kingship and of the Kingdom of England as a whole. It bears the Cross of St. George, the symbol of England, and surmounting the staff is an orb on which is a tiny map of England, or Ireland, where Richard was campaigning in 1394–95. The probable sense is that the pennant has just been presented by Richard. The liveried angels, iconographically very unusual, are a strangely precise anticipation of the lines from Shakespeare's Richard II
Richard II (play)
King Richard the Second is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to be written in approximately 1595. It is based on the life of King Richard II of England and is the first part of a tetralogy, referred to by some scholars as the Henriad, followed by three plays concerning Richard's...
of two hundred years later:
-
- The breath of worldly men cannot depose
- The deputy elected by the Lord:
- For every man that Bolingbroke hath press'd
- To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
- God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
- A glorious angel: then, if angels fight,
- Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right. (Act III Scene 2)
It is possible that Shakespeare had seen the picture, then still in the Royal Collection
Royal Collection
The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...
.
Apparently beginning relatively harmlessly in the reign of Richard's grandfather Edward III
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
in a context of tournament
Tournament
A tournament is a competition involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:...
s and courtly celebrations, by Richard's reign livery badges had come to be seen as a social menace, and were "one of the most protracted controversies of Richard's reign", as they were used to denote the small private armies of retainers kept by lords, largely for the purpose of enforcing their lord's will on the less powerful in his area. Though they were surely a symptom rather than a cause of both local baronial bullying and the disputes between the king and his uncles and other lords, Parliament repeatedly tried to curb the use of livery badges. The issuing of badges by lords was attacked in the Parliament of 1384, and in 1388 they made the startling request that "all liveries called badges [signes], as well of our lord the king as of other lords ... shall be abolished", because "those who wear them are flown with such insolent arrogance that they do not shrink from practising with reckless effrontery various kinds of extortion in the surrounding countryside ... and it is certainly the boldness inspired by these badges that makes them unafraid to do these things". Richard offered to give up his own badges, to the delight of the House of Commons of England
House of Commons of England
The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of Great Britain...
, but the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
refused to give up theirs, and the matter was put off. In 1390 it was ordered that no one below the rank of banneret should issue badges, and no one below the rank of esquire
Esquire
Esquire is a term of West European origin . Depending on the country, the term has different meanings...
wear them. The issue was apparently quiet for a few years, but from 1397 Richard issued increasingly large numbers of badges to retainers who misbehaved (his "Cheshire archers" being especially notorious), and in the Parliament of 1399, after his deposition, several of his leading supporters were forbidden from issuing "badges of signes" again, and a statute was passed allowing only the king (now Henry IV) to issue badges, and only to those ranking as esquires and above, who were only to wear them in his presence. In the end it took a determined campaign by Henry VII
Henry VII of England
Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....
to largely stamp out the use of livery badges by others than the king, and reduce them to things normally worn only by household servants.
All three saints who present the kneeling Richard to the Virgin and Child are believed to have been venerated by the king, as each has his own chapel in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
. Each saint holds the symbolic attribute by which they are recognised in art. Edmund the Martyr, who stands to the left, holds the arrow which killed him in 869, while Edward the Confessor, at the centre, holds the ring he gave to a pilgrim who transpired to be the disguised John the Evangelist
John the Evangelist
Saint John the Evangelist is the conventional name for the author of the Gospel of John...
. John the Baptist (right) holds his symbol, the Lamb of God
Lamb of God
The title Lamb of God appears in the Gospel of John, with the exclamation of John the Baptist: "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" in John 1:29 when he sees Jesus....
.
The scene makes reference to King Richard's birth on 6 January, the feast of Epiphany, when Christ was adored by three kings, often depicted in similar compositions to this. At this date the feast of the Baptism of Christ by John the Baptist was celebrated on the same day and the figure of John in his usual hermit's dress, carrying a lamb, recalls the shepherds, whose visit after the birth of Christ
Adoration of the shepherds
The Adoration of the shepherds, in the Nativity of Jesus in art, is a scene in which shepherds are near witnesses to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. It is often combined with the Adoration of the Magi, in which case it is typically just referred to by the latter title...
was often combined in the same scene as the visit of the Magi or three kings. There was also a story that Richard's birth in Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
was attended by the Kings of Spain, Navarre, and Portugal.
John the Baptist was Richard's patron saint
Patron saint
A patron saint is a saint who is regarded as the intercessor and advocate in heaven of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or person...
, and Saint Edward and Saint Edmund had both been English kings. Richard had a special devotion to Edmund, who with St. George is one of the patron saints of England.
The date of the Wilton Diptych has been the subject of considerable controversy among art historians. The National Gallery follow a broad current consensus in dating the painting to the last five years of Richard's reign, but dates between 1377 and about 1413 have been proposed. Richard was born in 1367, and the portrait seems to be of a younger man than the twenty-eight-year-old he was in 1395. It has been suggested that the eleven angels each represent a year of his age at the start of his actual reign, which began in 1377, when he gave eleven of the coins called angels
Angel (coin)
The Angel is a gold coin introduced into England by Edward IV in 1465 as a new issue of the Noble, thus is was first called the "angel-noble". It is based off the French coin known as the Angelot or Ange, which had been issued since 1340. It varied in value between that period and the time of...
to "Our Lady of the Pew" at Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
. The painting would then have been made more than fifteen years later to commemorate the moment. Alternatively the painting might represent Richard's reception into heaven after his death in 1399, though given the circumstances of his deposition, who would have commissioned such a work in the next reign is unclear.
The problem of the unusual number of angels has still not found an ultimate solution. It should be noted that it is in obvious contradiction with the iconography of the heavenly court of the Virgin, because in medieval iconography the number eleven has extremely negative symbolism. Considering the Biblical exegesis and medieval number symbolism, a possible interpretation of the enigmatic number of angels can be found in the Biblical motif of the second dream of young Joseph
Joseph (Hebrew Bible)
Joseph is an important character in the Hebrew bible, where he connects the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Canaan to the subsequent story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt....
(Genesis 37:9) in which the number eleven exceptionally has a positive meaning because it implicates the celestial twelve. The sun, the moon and eleven stars that in Joseph's dream are bowing down to him are completed by Joseph himself, who according to medieval exegesis is to be taken for a twelfth star. Having in mind the historical evidence of Richard II's personal regal iconography of the anointed king and the documented Biblical allusions, it seems that the motif of youthful Joseph honoured in his dream by the sun, representing the Christ, the moon, representing the Virgin and eleven stars representing his brothers offers a significant parallel to the vision of the heavenly court with Jesus Christ, the Virgin and eleven angelic courtiers appearing in front of the eyes of King Richard II.
The painting is indicative of both Richard's belief in his divine right
Divine Right of Kings
The divine right of kings or divine-right theory of kingship is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God...
to rule and his genuine Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
devotion. It also importantly symbolises (in the form of the Pennant), Richard II giving his kingdom into the hands of the Holy Virgin, thereby continuing a long tradition by which England was known as "Our Lady's Dowry
Dowry of Mary
Dowry of Mary is a title used in Roman Catholic contexts to refer to England.-Early use:...
" and was thought to be specially under her protection. Another painting, now lost, showed Richard and Anne offering the Virgin an orb
Globus cruciger
The globus cruciger is an orb topped with a cross , a Christian symbol of authority used throughout the Middle Ages and even today on coins, iconography and royal regalia...
representing England, with the inscription "This is your dowry, O Holy Virgin, wherefore, O Mary, may you rule over it".
Authorship
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
s from the 1410s. At this period it was common in Northern Europe for panel paintings, still made in very small numbers, to be made by artists with a background in illumination. The date of the painting, at a time when the International Gothic style was at its most similar in several courts in Europe, makes identifying the nationality of its painter more difficult. It is possible that the painter was English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, but apart from the Westminster portrait of Richard, now unlike the Diptych much overpainted, there are too few comparable works to establish in what style the recorded English painters worked.
The artist has been proposed as coming from "every possible nation", but France seems the most likely, with Italy another possibility, and some art historians point to the possibility of a Bohemian
Bohemian
A Bohemian is a resident of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, either in a narrow sense as the region of Bohemia proper or in a wider meaning as the whole country, now known as the Czech Republic. The word "Bohemian" was used to denote the Czech people as well as the Czech language before the word...
artist, perhaps brought to England by Richard II's first wife, Anne of Bohemia
Anne of Bohemia
Anne of Bohemia was Queen of England as the first wife of King Richard II. A member of the House of Luxembourg, she was the eldest daughter of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, and Elizabeth of Pomerania....
. The exquisite quality of the painting is thought by most art historians to indicate that the artist was probably from northern France. It shows similarities to the manuscript painting of Pol de Limbourg, but like the other surviving portrait of Richard, in Westminster Abbey, is also closely related in themes to paintings made in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
for Anne's father Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles IV , born Wenceslaus , was the second king of Bohemia from the House of Luxembourg, and the first king of Bohemia to also become Holy Roman Emperor....
and her brother Wenceslas, King of the Romans.
Provenance
The painting was first documented in 1649 in an inventory of the art collection of Charles ICharles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
. It passed to the Earls of Pembroke
Earl of Pembroke
Earl of Pembroke is a title created ten times, all in the Peerage of England. It was first created in the 12th century by King Stephen of England. The title is associated with Pembroke, Pembrokeshire in West Wales, which is the site of Earldom's original seat Pembroke Castle...
who kept it at Wilton House
Wilton House
Wilton House is an English country house situated at Wilton near Salisbury in Wiltshire. It has been the country seat of the Earls of Pembroke for over 400 years....
, from which it takes its name, until it was bought by the National Gallery in 1929. That it remained intact is remarkable because little religious pictorial art survived the Puritan iconoclasm
Iconoclasm
Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes...
that followed the execution of Charles I.
Further reading
- Gordon, D., Making and meaning: The Wilton Diptych, London: National Gallery, 1993
- Gordon, D., Monnas, L. and Elam, C. (eds.), The regal image of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych, London: Harvey Miller, 1997