The painted diptych, a work comprised of two hinged panels of equal size that can be opened and closed like a book, flourished as a Netherlandish art form from 1430 to the mid-sixteenth century. Leading artists such as Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Hans Memling used this format for some of the most compelling paintings of the period, and it enjoyed popularity for both religious and secular subjects. The splendid exhibition Prayers and Portraits: Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych was the first ever devoted to this formula in early Northern art. The show brought together many spectacular works, in some cases reuniting panels that have not been seen together in recent memory. It also presented a wealth of new information that greatly expands our knowledge of this particular type of Netherlandish imagery. The lavishly illustrated catalogue, written by the exhibition organizers John Oliver Hand and Catherine A. Metzger, both at the National Gallery, Washington, and Ron Spronk, then at the Fogg Art Museum and now at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, will remain a standard resource for the study of early Northern painting.

The show in Washington included thirty-seven fifteenth- and sixteenth-century examples of the diptych and pendant formula from the Netherlands and France. The exhibition organizers employed an interdisciplinary approach, addressing the material properties, the functions, and the patronage of the diptych. With the support of a Collaborative Research Grant from the Getty Foundation, they extensively examined most of the paintings using a range of scientific techniques including dendochronology, infrared reflectography, x-radiography, and high-resolution digital photography. The catalogue provides two excellent essays, the first on the history and nature of the diptych format and the second on its material qualities, followed by forty catalogue entries and an appendix that documents the technical findings related to each painting.

The show opened with an installation of works selected to define the diptych format. These included such astonishingly beautiful paintings as Robert Campin’s St. Petersburg The Trinity/Virgin and Child (ca. 1433–35), Van Eyck’s Madrid The Virgin Annunciate (ca. 1435–37), and the Virgin and Child/Saint George and the Dragon (ca. 1432–35, Madrid/Washington) probably by Rogier van der Weyden. Subsequent rooms focused on the devotional diptych type and on the evolution of the diptych format. While the exhibition’s title may seem to refer mainly to diptychs that juxtapose a portrait with a devotional image, the show also included many works that pair narrative religious scenes, such as Hugo van der Goes’s luminous The Fall of Man/The Lamentation (ca. 1479, Vienna), or a portrait with another portrait as found in marriage diptychs or in Quentin Massys’s “friendship diptych” of Erasmus and Peter Gillis (ca. 1520, Rome/Antwerp). In addition, allegorical panels by Memling (ca. 1485–90, New York/Rotterdam) were exhibited in Washington.

As the catalogue authors note, the increased production of painted diptychs in the North may be related to the personal nature of some contemporary devotional practices, particularly those associated with the Devotio Moderna movement and with religious groups such as the Cistercians, Franciscans, and Carthusians. The half-length devotional portrait diptych, a type refined by Rogier, was well represented by the show’s reunification of his beautiful Philippe de Croÿ (ca. 1460, Antwerp) with his Virgin and Child (ca. 1460, San Marino), and of his Jean de Gros (ca. 1455–60, Chicago) with the (poorly preserved) Virgin and Child (ca. 1455–65, Tournai). Later variations on the type were seen in works by Jean Bellegambe and Jan Provost, among others. Especially welcome was the reunification of Jan Vermeyen’s The Holy Family (ca. 1525–30, Amsterdam) with Cardinal Érard de la Marck (ca. 1525–30, Amsterdam) and of Michel Sittow’s Virgin and Child (ca.1515–18, Berlin) with Portrait of Diego de Guevara (?) (ca. 1515–18, Washington). Panels showing the patron in full-length opposite the Virgin included Jan Gossaert’s Eyckian Virgin in the Church/Antonio Siciliano and Saint Anthony (1513–14, Rome).

Many of the exhibited panels demonstrated how artists heightened the relationships between the wings of a devotional diptych. For instance, in Memling’s Diptych of Maarten van Nieuwenhove (1487, Bruges), a parapet unites the Virgin’s panel with that of the patron. While the catalogue authors argue that Maarten has placed his prayer-book on the hem of the Virgin’s mantle, extended across her own panel into his, to this reviewer the sitter’s book rests not on the Virgin’s robe but on a folded pouch, the kind used to store both prayer-books and diptychs (for a similar pouch, see cat. 10, fig. 1). The pouch’s similarity in color and texture to the Virgin’s dress implies her presence in the sitter’s contemplative experience, while remaining an object in the everyday world.

One of the exhibition’s great achievements was to demonstrate how artists adjusted compositions to enhance the format’s special purposes. These panels, typically hung on a wall or set on a table, altar, or pillow, would be opened at an angle to each other. The organizers’ technical research revealed that artists altered the figures’ glances and gestures at a late stage of production when the panels could be examined at their intended angle. This was the case, for instance, in Van Eyck’s virtuoso The Virgin Annunciate in Madrid, where the artist reworked Gabriel’s hand in response to the Virgin’s placement on the facing panel.

Some of the scientific investigations have brought to light exciting new discoveries concerning long-familiar paintings. For example, scholars have puzzled over the relationship between the tiny Virgin and Child in Madrid and the Saint George and the Dragon of the same size in Washington, both assigned to Rogier. Infrared reflectogram assemblies made for the exhibition show that the two panels have an identical crack, revealing them to be the front and back of the same panel. This panel may have been one wing of a diptych or triptych whose corresponding wing or wings remain unknown. Infrared examination has also revealed fascinating new information about Memling’s Diptych of Maarten van Nieuwenhove. We now understand that the arched stained-glass window displaying the patron’s coat of arms was not part of the original composition, but that it was painted over an already completed rectangular window similar to the one at the Virgin’s right. Memling probably made this change at Nieuwenhove’s request, illustrating how the patron could influence the evolution of a design. The coat of arms holds greater prominence here than on its more typical place on the back of the panel. Moreover, its addition enlivens the diptych, providing a bright counterpart to the colorful pane of St. Marten in the right panel.

Various types of information have been uncovered about almost all the paintings in the exhibition. Panels presumed to form diptychs were found to be originally parts of triptychs or to have been connected at a later date. Hinges and frames have yielded clues about the uses and display of diptychs and pendants. Analyses of underdrawings and painting techniques have revealed that artists used numerous forms of workshop involvement and streamlining procedures.

Among the many highlights presented by the exhibition’s reunification of long-separated panels was the opportunity to view Geertgen tot Sint Jans’s Rotterdam The Glorification of the Virgin (ca. 1480–90) alongside the problematic The Crucifixion with Saints Jerome and Dominic and Scenes from the Passion (ca. 1480–90) in Edinburgh. The two were described as a diptych since 1959, and hinge marks are visible on the Edinburgh panel. Most scholars have considered the Crucifixion to be the work of weaker hand. The two scenes differ significantly in composition, the one dominated by a large figure in a flattened space of concentric glowing circles, and the other a deep landscape filled with small animated figures. James Snyder was not entirely convinced that the panels were originally planned as a diptych. In an unpublished lecture from the mid-1970s, he speculated that the Crucifixion may reflect a now-lost large-scale painting by Geertgen, which was rendered in small scale by a follower of the artist and subsequently joined to the Glorification of the Virgin. However, some formal relationships became very striking when the two panels were seen together in Washington. The Virgin and Child glance to the left—the Child’s gaze leads directly toward the souls under the Cross—and the circular composition of the Glorification of the Virgin is repeated in the figures’ circular placement around the Cross. The panels persuade as a pair, and the catalogue authors make a compelling case for the panels being by the same hand, although the Crucifixion is sketchier in execution than the Glorification of the Virgin.

Another revelation was the pairing of two panels representing Saint Jerome and the Holy Trinity, both attributed to the Master of the Lille Adoration, a stylistic personality composed of a group of hands active circa 1530 rather than a single artist. These two compositions of Jerome and the Trinity, long known in numerous versions as independent paintings, were correctly recognized as pendants by Peter van den Brink (unpublished opinion recorded in the catalogue entry, no. 22, p. 150), and their relationship could be examined here for the first time (Maryan Ainsworth subsequently published further evidence that the two are pendants in the Burlington Magazine [Maryan Ainsworth, “Text and Image: How St Jerome Sees the Trinity,” Burlington Magazine 149, no. 1247 [February 2007]: 95–6]). The unusual combination of scenes, which depict Jerome experiencing a vision, reveals an innovative aspect of the Master of the Lille Adoration group, known largely from paintings that follow the formulaic subjects and motifs of the so-called Antwerp Mannerists.

As an exhibition, Prayers and Portraits was an invigorating event. It brought together major works of dazzling quality and offered new insights by reuniting separated panels not previously studied side-by-side. The organizers’ thorough technical research resulted in profound discoveries that refine our knowledge of the patronage, use, and production of Netherlandish art. While the organizers did not address every aspect of the subject in depth—for instance they paid less attention to the important issues of gender and to the parallel role of the diptych in Italy—their accomplishments are great, and they have laid an invaluable foundation for further analysis of the context in which this artistic formula functioned.