This exhibition brought together two masterpieces of early Netherlandish painting commissioned in the 1440s by the Carthusian monk Jan Vos, reuniting them for only the second time in their history. The panels — the Frick’s Virgin and Child with St. Barbara, St. Elizabeth, and Jan Vos, by Jan van Eyck and his workshop, and The Virgin and Child with St. Barbara and Jan Vos by Petrus Christus, then in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin — were commissioned by Vos during his tenure as prior of the Carthusian monastery (or charterhouse) of Bruges. The panels were presented with Carthusian objects that placed them in their rich monastic context, offering a glimpse into the visual environment of the charterhouse and highlighting the role that images played in shaping devotional life and funerary practices in Europe during the late Middle Ages.
The Charterhouse of Bruges was on view in the museum’s Cabinet Gallery and was curated by Emma Capron, the 2016–18 Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow at The Frick Collection. The exhibition was accompanied by a fully illustrated scholarly catalogue published by The Frick Collection in association with D Giles Ltd., London.
Major funding for the exhibition was provided by Howard S. Marks and Nancy Marks and an anonymous gift in memory of Melvin R. Seiden. Additional support was generously provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the General Delegation of the Government of Flanders to the U.S., Mr. and Mrs. Michael J. Horvitz, Margot and Jerry Bogert, Harlan M. Stone, an anonymous donor, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and Nicholas Hall.
The accompanying catalogue is underwritten, in part, by the Flemish Research Centre for the Arts in the Burgundian Netherlands, Musea Brugge.
Jan van Eyck and Workshop, The Virgin and Child with St. Barbara, St. Elizabeth and Jan Vos, ca. 1441–43. Oil on panel, 18 5/8 × 24 1/8 in (47.3 × 61.3 cm). The Frick Collection, New York; photo Michael Bodycomb