Christ and the Virgin

Robert Campin's Christ and the Virgin, a devotional diptych pairing the enthroned Christ with the interceding Virgin, belongs to the tradition of the devotional diptych that was central to private Flemish piety in the fifteenth century. The format — two panels that could be closed for storage and opened for prayer — allowed the owner to engage in an intimate devotional exchange with sacred figures rendered with startling physical presence. Campin's characteristically sculptural figure style gives both Christ and the Virgin a monumental gravity quite different from the more lyrical treatments of his contemporaries, creating images of authority rather than sweetness.

The paired figures are rendered with Campin's characteristic sculptural modeling, their faces painted with the careful realism and subtle psychological presence that mark his contribution to the revolution of early Netherlandish portraiture.