Isabella of Portugal with Saint Elizabeth

Isabella of Portugal with Saint Elizabeth (or Saint Elizabeth presenting Isabella of Portugal or Saint Elizabeth and a donor^[3]) is a c. 1457–1460 oil-on-oak panel painting by the Early Netherlandish artist Petrus Christus. Originally the left-hand wing of a now lost triptych, the panel shows Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy (1397—1471) kneeling in prayer. She is attended by her patron saint and protector Elizabeth of Hungary (d. 1231), who is dressed as a nun and holds the three gold crowns that traditionally symbolise her piety and royal birth.^[4]

Isabel of Portugal with Saint Elizabeth
Artist	Petrus Christus
Year	c. 1457–60[1]
Type	Oil-on-oak panel[2]
Dimensions	58.7 cm × 32.9 cm (23.1 in × 13.0 in)
Location	Groeningemuseum, Bruges, Belgium
Accession	0000.GRO1614.I

Isabella of Portugal may have commissioned the triptych before she retired in 1457 to Nieppe in France. Although the panel is almost certainly a donor portrait, her facial features cannot be definitely attributed to her.^[5] She would have interacted with Christus – both were members of the confraternity of Our Lady of the Dry Tree.^[6]

The panel was once owned by Isabella's great-granddaughter Margaret of Austria, and is now in the collection of the Groeningemuseum in Bruges, Belgium.^[1] It was fully attributed to Christus in the 1960s.^[7]

Description

The oil painting is on oak and shows Isabella presented by her patron saint Elizabeth of Thuringia.^[8] It was originally the left-hand panel of a dismantled triptych whoes center panel consisted of a now lost Pietà with Our Lady of Sorrows (Mater dolorosa),^[9] while the right-hand wing showed St. Catherine of Alexandria and is now in a private collection.^[7]

Isabella wears a hennin headdress and has closed eyes and doll-like features. Her dress is lined with fur and its rendering has been described as influence by Jan Van Eyck.^[9] She is assisted by St. Elizabeth, a Hungarian queen (also known as Elisabeth of Thuringia) known giving over her own money to the sick and dying during the 1226 famine that devastated Thuringia, where she lived at the time.^[10] Elizabeth was expelled after her husband's death and entered the Order of Saint Francis. It is said of Elizabeth that she deserved three crowns because, as a virgin and as a wife and widow, she radiated holiness.

The reverse contains traces of a grisaille showing the archangel Gabriell.^[1]

Provenance

The panel was donated to Isabella's great-granddaughter Margaret of Austria by Catherine de Buisson, abbess of the Abbaye Sainte-Élisabeth du Quesnoy, France.^[1][6] It has been in the Groeningemuseum in Bruges, Belgium, since 1965.^[3]