An Image for ‘All Truly Penitent’. Reconsidering the Function of theMadonna of Jan Vosby Jan van Eyck and His Workshop

Abstract

A painting now kept in the Frick Collection, the so-called Madonna of Jan Vos, has been considered as one of the last works which were commissioned from Jan van Eyck in the final stages of his career. Most researchers agree that the painting was started by Van Eyck in the last year of his life and completed by one of his workshop members after Van Eyck’s death. The donor of the painting was Jan Vos, the Prior of the Carthusian monastery of Genadedal between 1441 and 1450. Evidence from the Order shows that the depicted image was to be venerated by ‘all truly penitent’, and that forty days of indulgence was granted for reciting the Ave Maria and the Pater Noster to the image. The aim of this article is to determine the original function, location, and audience of the Madonna of Jan Vos. In order to contextualize the painting in late-medieval devotional practice, emphasis is laid on the indulgence related to the Madonna of Jan Vos, as the indulgence is a decisive element to consider the raison d’être of the image.