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Lot Essay
It has been suggested that the letters L and C in the coat-of-arms in the donor's panel may stand for the phrase 'Liefde Christi', the Flemish rendering of a Christian motto--The Love of Christ--with widespread and long-standing currency, especially in the Low Countries and Germany. The two letters are linked by tassled elaborately-looped lacs d'amour--love knots--a motif popular in Netherlandish heraldry and decoration. More commonly associated with female sitters, here it reiterates the meaning of the initials, stressing the donor's piety and love for Christ.
The flag held by Saint George, De France, au franc-quartier d'argent trois croissants de gueules, is either a real or pseudo-historical heraldic device indicating a connection to French Flanders, where many towns and families bore arms 'De France'.
The number '31' to the left of the head of Saint Lawrence lends these four panels a particular art-historical interest; it is possible that it corresponds to a system of numbering saints in litanies and in the calendar of the liturgical year. It has been suggested that these four saints may have been part of a larger series, kept in a church or monastery to demonstrate visually the progression of the year from saint to saint, observed in the service as a passing from prayer to prayer. Such series occur more often in printed form, each saint numbered to match a list or a calendar; a painted set, no matter how abbreviated, would have been a considerable luxury, the pride of the institution that owned it.
We are grateful to Jan van Helmont for his help with this note.
The flag held by Saint George, De France, au franc-quartier d'argent trois croissants de gueules, is either a real or pseudo-historical heraldic device indicating a connection to French Flanders, where many towns and families bore arms 'De France'.
The number '31' to the left of the head of Saint Lawrence lends these four panels a particular art-historical interest; it is possible that it corresponds to a system of numbering saints in litanies and in the calendar of the liturgical year. It has been suggested that these four saints may have been part of a larger series, kept in a church or monastery to demonstrate visually the progression of the year from saint to saint, observed in the service as a passing from prayer to prayer. Such series occur more often in printed form, each saint numbered to match a list or a calendar; a painted set, no matter how abbreviated, would have been a considerable luxury, the pride of the institution that owned it.
We are grateful to Jan van Helmont for his help with this note.