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Dear Nancy,
The panel you describe sounds very interesting.  It is, in fact, one 
of a whole cluster of such works, which do not survive in great 
numbers, as the practice of giving holy figures the features of 
living (or recently deceased) persons was specifically targetted as 
one of the abuses of imagery during the Reformation and 
Counter-Reformation.  In Rogier van der Weyden's Columba Altarpiece, 
depicting the Adoration of the Magi, it is generally believed that 
the youngest Magus carries the features of Duke Charles the Rash (or 
Bold), and there are several examples from Florence, as well, notably 
Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi, in which the whole Medici clan 
gets included, with Cosimo, I believe, represented actually kissing 
the Christ Child's foot.  Perhaps the cheekiest instance of this sort 
to survive is Jean Fouquet's Melun Diptych, in which the Virgin Mary 
is apparently modelled after the king's mistress, Agnes Sorel, and 
looking for all the world like a 15th-century Playboy centrefold.  
I've certainly never heard of the panel you describe, and would be 
willing to bet that it does not survive, but it, too, seems to defy 
all sense of decorum in a way that the 15th century seemed all to 
capable of.  Jean sans Peur died in 1419, and if the panel was 
painted subsequent to this date, it is almost impossible that the 
work did not hold a stridently political message, to the point of 
impinging rather impiously on the purported subject of the panel.  
Quite fascinating.  Thanks for pointing it out.
Cheers, 
Jim Bugslag


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