A Man Reading (Saint Ivo?)

Saint Ivo, a Breton lawyer of the 13th century known as the advocate of the poor, had few followers in the Netherlands around 1450, when this panel was made in the workshop of Rogier van der Weyden, by an imitator or perhaps an assistant. His cult there grew after his relics reached Antwerp late in the 16th century. The halo and the inscription naming him proved to be later additions, so the gallery keeps a question mark in the title. The letter in his hands does not settle it, since its writing is an invented script that was never legible. In 1801 the panel was sold in London as a Raphael. Through the window a bridge crosses a river below a walled castle, a rider on a white horse climbs the road, and under the trees a small party listens to a musician who seems to be playing bagpipes.