DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42081#0074
gold and black, at the Louvre it is red and green; in Mending's
picture the lacing of the bodice is alternately horizontal and
diagonal whereas in Van der Weyden’s only every other eyelet
3® On the back of our panel there is the same cross and,
almost word for word, the same inscription as on the original :
« O mors quam | amara est | memoria | tua homini | injusto et pacem
habenti in substanciis suis | viro quieto et cuius vie directe sunt
in omnibus | et ad hue | valenti | accipere [ cibum Eccl. | XLI. » It
is the text of the two first verses of the 41st. chapter of
Ecclesiasticus which Le Maistre de Sacy translates as follows :
« O Death how bitter is thy memory to a man who has peace
in the midst of his possessions, to a man who has nothing
to trouble him, to whom everything is prosperous and who
yet is able to enjoy his meat. » It must be noted that the
text of the Vulgate is correctly given here in two points
which now have been wrongly transcribed at the back ,of Van
der Weyden’s panel; we have the correct version : « pacem
habenti » instead of « pacem habente » and « vie directe »
instead of « die directe »; on the other hand the strange
interpolation « injusto et » remains here as in Paris. This
invocation together with the funeral emblem behind the Saint
John in the triptych, have led us to the supposition that perhaps
the work of Van der Weyden may have been bought by the
young widow of Jehan Braque in memory of her husband who
died after only two years of married life. The escutcheons of
the Braque and Brabant families that appear at the back of
picture the lacing of the bodice is alternately horizontal and
diagonal whereas in Van der Weyden’s only every other eyelet
3® On the back of our panel there is the same cross and,
almost word for word, the same inscription as on the original :
« O mors quam | amara est | memoria | tua homini | injusto et pacem
habenti in substanciis suis | viro quieto et cuius vie directe sunt
in omnibus | et ad hue | valenti | accipere [ cibum Eccl. | XLI. » It
is the text of the two first verses of the 41st. chapter of
Ecclesiasticus which Le Maistre de Sacy translates as follows :
« O Death how bitter is thy memory to a man who has peace
in the midst of his possessions, to a man who has nothing
to trouble him, to whom everything is prosperous and who
yet is able to enjoy his meat. » It must be noted that the
text of the Vulgate is correctly given here in two points
which now have been wrongly transcribed at the back ,of Van
der Weyden’s panel; we have the correct version : « pacem
habenti » instead of « pacem habente » and « vie directe »
instead of « die directe »; on the other hand the strange
interpolation « injusto et » remains here as in Paris. This
invocation together with the funeral emblem behind the Saint
John in the triptych, have led us to the supposition that perhaps
the work of Van der Weyden may have been bought by the
young widow of Jehan Braque in memory of her husband who
died after only two years of married life. The escutcheons of
the Braque and Brabant families that appear at the back of