Travel Belgium About Brussels Musees Royaux Des Beaux Arts Rogier Van Weyden And Dieric Bouts
Rooms 11 and 12 hold several paintings by Rogier van der Weyden (1399-1464), the official city painter to Brussels in the middle of the fifteenth century. When it came to portraiture his favourite technique was to highlight the features of his subject - and tokens of rank - against a black background. The
Portrait of the Grand Bātard de Bourgogne (Room 11) is a good example, with Anthony, the illegitimate son of Philip the Good, casting a haughty, tight-lipped stare to his right while wearing the chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece and clasping an arrow, the emblem of the guild of archers.
In Room 13 , the two panels of the Justice of the Emperor Otto are the work of Weyden's contemporary, the Leuven-based Dieric Bouts (1410-75). The story was well known: in revenge for refusing her advances, the empress accuses a nobleman of attempting to seduce her. He is executed, but the man's wife remains convinced of his innocence and subsequently proves her point by means of an ordeal by fire in which she holds a red hot iron bar.
