Roger van der Weyden

Rog(i)er van der Weyden (c. 1400 - June 18, 1464), Flemish painter, also known as Roger de la Pasture, Rogier de Bruxelles, etc., was born at Tournai, where in 1427 he entered the studio of Robert Campin[?].

He established himself in Brussels about 1435. He was in Italy in 1440-1450, but his visit shows no result on his style, which owes nothing to Italian models; and he returned to Brussels, where he died.

His vigorous, subtle and expressive painting and popular religious conceptions had considerable influence on the art of Flanders and Germany. Memlinc was his greatest pupil; and his place in the early Flemish school is second only to that of the Van Eycks. He was not a pupil of Jan van Eyck, as was at one time supposed.

His principal paintings were: a Descent from the Cross (1440), now in Madrid, and another (1443) in the church of Saint-Pierre at Louvain; a triptych (1438-1440), now in the Berlin Museum[?]; Madonna with Saints (1450), at the Stadel Institute, Frankfurt; a Last Judgment (1451), in the hospital of Beaune, France; the portraits of Philip the Good[?] (Antwerp Museum) and Charles the Bold (Brussels Museum), painted about 1456-1458; the Altar-piece of St John and the triptych from Middelburg (Berlin Museum); an Entombment of Christ (National Gallery); a Woman Crying (Brussels Museum); Descent from the Cross (Louvre); Adoration of the Magi (Old Pinakothek at Munich); Descent from the Cross (the Hague); Seven Sacraments (Antwerp Museum); Descent from the Cross (Brussels Museum). Some of these latter, and others, are only doubtfully attributed to the master. The Crucifixion in the Brussels Museum, assigned either to him or to Memlinc, and containing portraits of the Sforzas, probably represents Roger van der Weyden in some of the principal figures at least, though Memlinc may have completed the picture.

There was a younger Roger van der Weyden (c. 1450-1529), to whom a brilliant Mary Magdalen in the National Gallery is attributed.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.

Selected link

• Web Gallery of Art: Rogier van der Weyden (http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/w/weyden/rogier/index)