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Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels

— In the presence of plenty.”

I have waited several years to see this painting, on display at the Royal Fine Arts Museum in Antwerp. It depicts a resplendent, charged image that somehow escaped the censure of conservative times despite being, to modern eyes anyway, a deeply irreligious religious painting.

Dominating the composition is the heavenly Virgin, whose allure is altogether earthly and betrays nothing virginal. She is aloof, composed and self-aware, with the baby’s presence on her lap languishing somewhere between ambivalence and burden.

Since Byzantine times, the established motif requires her gaze to express wonder and love for her offspring. Instead she draws attention to that perfectly rendered shape above the child. Is it a vital source of spiritual nourishment or a worldly source of attraction?

Her dress is sumptuous and cleverly calculated to show her untypically feminised figure. She is luminous, flawless, almost diaphanous. Her pale glow contrasts elegantly with the vivid, fleshy cherubic host at her flanks. These Christian symbols of Heaven, of course, had classical beginnings as symbols of love.

Jean Fouquet, the majority of whose surviving oeuvre consists of richly decorative book illuminations, shows himself here to have been a painter of notable skill. His experience in Italy and later in Flanders influenced his mature, unique style.

This painting boasts remarkable colours which, even when placed among the works of a Flemish tradition renowned for vibrant tones, still dazzle the viewer today.

Perhaps in a reflection of his art, the Frenchman walked in worldly circles. Though little is known of his life, it is recorded that he was court painter to the Crown of France late in his career.

The Virgin in the painting is thought to be modelled on Agnès Sorel, a favoured mistress of King Charles VII. Sorel’s intelligence and extraordinary beauty seems to have been offset by, in the opinion of her enemies, profligacy and excessive influence on the King. She died suddenly, perhaps having been poisoned by mercury, in 1450.

The painting is actually the right portion of a diptych, the other half of which can be found today in Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie. If the two portions were reunited, St Stephen and Étienne Chevalier would both be gazing upon the ‘Virgin’ Sorel with a mixture of contemplation and solemn admiration.

Chevalier was a lover of Sorel whilst the Saint, who according to the church was the first Christian martyr, lost his life because of blasphemy.

A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words.