布拉克三联画

In June 1452 a man named Jehan Braque died in the French town of Tournai, not long after his marriage. His widow, Catherine de Brabant, seems to have turned to Rogier van der Weyden, the leading painter in the region, and this small triptych was very likely her response to that loss. It is unusual in his work. Almost everything else he made was for a church or a chapel, but this one was built to be portable, a devotional object for private hands. When you close its two wings you do not see saints. You see a skull resting on a brick and a cross, with an inscription reminding the owner that death comes to everyone. Open it and the mood lifts. Christ appears between the Virgin and John the Evangelist, with John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene on the wings, all set against distant gold-lit landscapes.