Henri Bellechose
Encyclopedia
Henri Bellechose was a painter from the South Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. He was one of the most significant artists at the beginning of panel painting
Panel painting
A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, it was the normal form of support for a painting not on a wall or vellum, which was used for...

 in Northern Europe, and among the earliest artists of Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...

.

Biography

Bellechose was an artist who came from the South Netherlands to Dijon
Dijon
Dijon is a city in eastern France, the capital of the Côte-d'Or département and of the Burgundy region.Dijon is the historical capital of the region of Burgundy. Population : 151,576 within the city limits; 250,516 for the greater Dijon area....

 to work for the Dukes of Burgundy
Duke of Burgundy
Duke of Burgundy was a title borne by the rulers of the Duchy of Burgundy, a small portion of traditional lands of Burgundians west of river Saône which in 843 was allotted to Charles the Bald's kingdom of West Franks...

. There he was appointed court painter to John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy and "valet de chambre
Valet de chambre
Valet de chambre , or varlet de chambre, was a court appointment introduced in the late Middle Ages, common from the 14th century onwards. Royal Households had many persons appointed at any time...

", a court appointment, as his predecessor Jean Malouel
Jean Malouel
Jean Malouel, or Jan Maelwael in his native Dutch, was a Netherlandish artist, sometimes classified as French, who was the court painter of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and his successor John the Fearless, working in the International Gothic style.-Documented life:He was presumably born in...

 and successor Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....

 were. Nothing is known of his career before this, and it has been suggested that he had been working as Malouel's assistant for some time, and for some art historians their oeuvres are closely entangled.
Almost all of Bellechose's documented work was commissions from the Dukes of Burgundy, with some works for churches in Dijon. However the number of works recorded in the meticulous Burgundian accounts greatly exceed the number that survive; and only two may possibly fall into both categories. His famous Martyrdom of Saint Denis in the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

, like other panel painting
Panel painting
A panel painting is a painting made on a flat panel made of wood, either a single piece, or a number of pieces joined together. Until canvas became the more popular support medium in the 16th century, it was the normal form of support for a painting not on a wall or vellum, which was used for...

s by him, was commissioned by the Duke for the Chartreuse of Champmol in Dijon, founded by Philip the Bold as a dynastic burial place. The pigments to "parfaire" (literally "perfect" - a word much argued over) an image of the "life of St Denis", but interestingly not any gold for the background, were advanced by the Duchy in May 1415. This has led to the suggestion that the work had been left incomplete by Malouel, who had been given wood for five altarpieces as long ago as 1398. According to this theory, Bellechose just completed a work with underdrawing and gold background already in place. Snyder and Chátelet support Malouel's participation, but this is disputed, especially in an article of 1961 by Nicole Reynaud (in French). For Chátelet this and the Louvre large tondo usually attributed to Malouel are two of the five altarpieces commissioned in 1398; however he suggests the tondo is by Bellechose when he was Malouel's assistant, thus reversing the traditional attributions of these works.

In April 1420, John the Fearless died, and Bellechose was retained by his successor, Philip the Good. The works recorded in the accounts of the Duke were mostly decorative, including commissions such as coats of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...

 for funerals, as was normal for court artists, but two altarpiece
Altarpiece
An altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...

s, neither apparently surviving, were commissioned in 1425 and 1429. A court appointment by no means precluded outside work.

Bellechose had a large studio which at its peak consisted of eight assistants and two apprentices. In about 1424 Bellechose married Alixant Lebon, the daughter of a notary
Civil law notary
Civil-law notaries, or Latin notaries, are lawyers of noncontentious private civil law who draft, take, and record legal instruments for private parties, provide legal advice and give attendance in person, and are vested as public officers with the authentication power of the State...

.

In August 1429, Bellechose received his last ducal salary and his name disappears from the ducal accounts. Bellechose's salary had been decreased by two thirds since 1426. Philip the Good spent more time in the Netherlands where he employed the prodigious Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck was a Flemish painter active in Bruges and considered one of the best Northern European painters of the 15th century....

. We know that Bellechose was still alive in 1440, but absent from Dijon; by January 1445 he had died.

External links

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