Csornay Boldizsár - Hubai Péter szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 96. (Budapest, 2002)

KOVÁCS, ZOLTÁN: A New Representation of the Salvator Mundi from the workshop of Quentin Massys

42. Rogier van der Weyden: Central panel of the Braque Triptych, Paris, Louvre, 1451-52. fingers bent. Unfortunately, the panel's present state of preservation makes it impossible to determine whether Christ's left hand is resting on a book, a globe, or a simple parapet. However, basing her argument on the cruciform frame of a window reflected in the oval brooch on Christ's garment, Carla Gottlieb classified the figure as Christ the Saviour. She advanced the view that the mystic window as the source of light, as fenestra paradisi, as lux mundi, combined with the motif of the sign of salvation, the cross, is a basic criterion for considering an image to be part of the iconographie tradition of the Salvator Mundi.

32 It was the prototype created by the Master of Flémalle that was to provide a source of inspiration to his disciple, Rogier van der Weyden, who represented Christ in the Braque Triptych (dating from circa 1451-2) before a landscape backdrop, attended by the Virgin and St John the Evangelist.

33 The half-length, frontally posed figure of the Saviour raises His right in blessing and holds a metal globe, surmounted by a small cross, in His left (fig.42).

34 The inscription above His head (Ego sum panis vivus qui 32 Gottlieb, op. cit. (cfr. n. 10). In search of the motif of the mystic window, Gottlieb discussed the representations of the Salvator Mundi at large, however, omitting the images that did not fit into her concept. (See, for example the painting by Quentin Massys in the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh.). For this painting, see S. Ferber, Quentin Massys's Salvator Mundi, North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 9 (1970 / 34.), 36-41. Some other essays on iconography by Gottlieb discussing the motif of the reflected window are: The Window in the Eye and Globe, The Art Bulletin 57 (1975), 559-60; The Window in Art. From the Window of God to the Vanitas of Man, New York 1981, 152-7. 33 D. De Vos, Rogier van der Weyden: The Complete Works, Antwerp 1999, 268-73, no. 19. 34 Gottlieb suggested the addition of the globe may have been the invention of Rogier. If it were correct, Rogier would have been the first to paint the classic type of the Salvator Mundi. Gottlieb, op. cit. (cfr. n. 10), 345-6.