À la recherche de Jan van Bruessel: Peut-on rapprocher le Diptyque ex Palude du panneau du Jugement dernier conservé à l'hôtel de ville de Maastricht?

The monumental Last Judgement in Maastricht's Old Town Hall can be attributed to the local master Jan van Bruessel on the evidence of a document of 1475. He was commissioned to paint it by the Judges' Chambers of Tricht, a short-lived court of justice created two years earlier in the Prince-Bishopric of Liege by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Can Jan van Bruessel's hand be detected in any other work? This article confronts the Maastricht panel with a diptych from the Grand Curtius in Liege that was commissioned by Canon Henricus de Palude (or ex Palude) very probably between 1489 and 1492. The diptych, which hung in Liege Cathedral until the end of the eighteenth century, depicts Mary Worshipping her Child at the Nativity and The Martyrdom of St Lambert, Bishop of Liege. The combination of these two scenes is an allusion to the double patrocinium of the former cathedral of Liege, which was dedicated to both the Virgin and St Lambert. There are numerous points of resemblance between the diptych and the Maastricht Last Judgement. A systematic comparison of the two works reveals obvious similarities in the form and decoration of buildings, in the pattern of floor coverings and brocade motifs, and also in some faces as well. They can hardly be coincidental. That the diptych is attributable to the painter of The Last Judgement is admittedly hypothetical, since it lacks any technical documentation of the two works. But if the artist who worked for Henricus ex Palude was not Jan van Bruessel, he was at least familiar with his figural repertoire and must have spent time in his workshop, which appears to have gained a notable intellectual standing in the Maas region at the end of the fifteenth century. The master and any assistants he may have had were capable of depicting exceptional programmes. Both The Last Judgement, with a scene of justice being dispensed in the foreground, and The Martyrdom of St Lambert, which was the first work of art to depict the murder of the saint's two nephews, are original compositions with an innovative iconography.SCOPUS: ar.j