This painting is closely based on Jan van Eyck's Madonna with Chancellor Rolin. Van der Weyden uses the same cubic space as Van Eyck, with an opening supported by two columns through which the main scene opens out onto a landscape in the background.
There exist three other examples of this composition, identical apart from a few details, of which the one in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, since its restoration in 1932-33, is regarded by most art historians as the original (other examples in St Petersburg, Hermitage, and Bruges, Groeningemuseum).
|