Joos van der Burch and Saint Simon of Jerusalem

Diptychs played an important devotional role in the Netherlands. The panels hinged together here are from two different workshops. The earlier one, showing the Virgin and Child (1906.6.A)., is based directly on a prototype by Rogier van der Weyden. Soon after its creation, it was paired with an image of a donor (1906.6.B) — identified by an epitaph on the reverse as Joos van der Burch, a court official — who is accompanied by Saint Simon of Jerusalem. A prayer written on a banderole rises from his clasped hands toward a window, through which we see the Crucifixion set in a landscape. Technical evidence suggests that the image was originally commissioned by Joos’s son, Simon van der Burch, who had himself portrayed alongside his patron saint. Simon’s likeness was later painted over with that of his father, perhaps as a demonstration of filial piety.