The Flanders Panel Read Online Free Page B

feelings of nostalgia were immediately left behind, and the relief on her face must have been so patent that he looked at her, surprised, before turning his attention back to the page of the book.
    Julia glanced at the title:
Switzerland
, Burgundy and the Low Countries in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.
    “Look.” Alvaro was pointing at a name in the text. Then he transferred his finger to the photograph of the painting she had placed on the table.
    “FERDINANDUS OST. D.
is the identifying inscription of the chess player on the left, the man dressed in red. Van Huys painted
The Game of Chess
in 1471, so there’s no doubt about it. It’s Ferdinand Altenhoffen, the Duke of Ostenburg,
Ostenburguensis Dux,
born in 1435, died in… yes, that’s right, in 1474. He was about thirty-five when he sat for the painter.”
    Julia had picked up a card from the table and was pointing at what was written there.
    “Where
was
Ostenburg?… In Germany?”
    Alvaro shook his head and opened a historical atlas.
    “Ostenburg was a duchy that corresponded, more or less, to Charlemagne’s Rodovingia… It was here, inside the Franco-German borders, between Luxembourg and Flanders. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Ostenburg dukes tried to remain independent, but ended up being absorbed, first by Burgundy and then by Maximilian of Austria. In fact, the Altenhoffen dynasty died out with this particular Ferdinand. If you like, I can make you some photocopies.”
    “I’d be very grateful.”
    “It’s no trouble.” Alvaro sat back in his chair, took a tin of tobacco from a drawer in the desk and started filling his pipe. “Logically, the lady by the window, with the inscription
BEATRIX BURG. OST. D.
can only be Beatrice of Burgundy, the Duke’s consort. See? Beatrice married Ferdinand Altenhoffen in 1464, when she was twenty-three.”
    “For love?” asked Julia with an enigmatic smile, looking at the photograph. Alvaro responded with a brief, rather forced smile of his own.
    “As you know, very few marriages of this kind were love matches… The wedding was an attempt by Beatrice’s uncle, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, to create closer ties with Ostenburg in an alliance against France, which was trying to annex both duchies.” Alvaro looked at the photograph and put his pipe between his teeth. “Ferdinand of Ostenburg was lucky though, because she was very beautiful. At least, according to what the most important chronicler of the time, Nicolas Flavin, said in his
Annates bourguignonnes.
Your Van Huys seems to have thought so too. It appears she’d been painted by him before, because there’s a document, quoted by Pijoan, which states that Van Huys was for a time court painter at Ostenburg. In 1463, Ferdinand Altenhoffen assigned him a pension of £100 a year, payable half at the feast of St John and the other half at Christmas. The same document contains the commission to paint a portrait,
bien au vif,
of Beatrice, who was then the Duke’s fiancee.”
    “Are there any other references?”
    “Loads. Van Huys became quite an important person.” Alvaro took a file out of a cabinet. “Jean Lemaire, in his
Couronne Margaridique,
written in honour of Margaret of Austria, Governor of the Low Countries, mentions Pierre de Brugge (Van Huys), Hughes de Gand (Van der Goes) and Dieric de Louvain (Dietric Bouts), together with the person he dubs the king of Flemish painters, Johannes (Van Eyck). The actual words he uses in the poem are: ‘Pierre de Brugge, qui tant eut les traits utez’, which translates literally as ‘he who drew such clean lines’. By the time that was written, Van Huys had been dead for twenty-five years.” Alvaro carefully checked through some other cards. “And there are earlier mentions too. For example, inventories from the Kingdom of Valencia state that Alfonso V the Magnanimous owned works by Van Huys, Van Eyck and other painters, all of them now lost. Bartolomeo Fazio, a close