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Rogier van der Weyden

Chronology

1399/1400: Born in Tournai (Belgium). Thought by many to be same person as Rogelet de la Pasture (means same thing in French as "v.d.Weyden" does in Flemish). If this is true, he was apprenticed to Robert Campin in Tournai (q.v.)

Married (date unknown) a relative of Campin's wife.

1426: Birth of a son, Corneille.

November 17: "Maistre Rogier de la Pasture" receives honorary gift of wine from Tournai city council. Is this the painter? We don't know, but it's more wine than they gave to Jan van Eyck.

1427-32: "Rogelet de la Pasture, natif de Tournay" apprenticed to Campin, attains rank of master on August 1, 1432. (Can this be same guy as "Maistre" Rogier de la Pasture? Why would he be called "maistre" before even apprenticed? We don't know.)

1435: Documents relating to Rogier's investments in Tournai stocks give his current residence as Brussels, and his age as 35. Brussels at this time was in Flemish language area, which would explain translation of "Pasture" to "Weyden."

1430s (Sometime): Paints Descent from the Cross (now Madrid, Prado).

1436: Is already official painter to the city of Brussels.

1436/37: Three mentions of works at Tournai by "Master Rogier the painter."

1438: Date inscribed on the Campin/Flemalle Werl Altar panel, both ascribed to Campin/Flemalle but beginning to resemble style of Van der Weyden. Why?

1439: Four paintings (now known only partially, from copies) of famous justice cases (Trajan, Herkinbald, and 2 others) painted for Brussels city hall. (Destroyed 1695)

1439/40: Paid by Philip the Good for polychroming a sculptured relief in the Franciscan church, Brussels.

1441: Colors a dragon used in religious processions (Brussels).

1442: Buys more Tournai stock, is stated to be 43 years old, residing in Brussels.

1443: Date inscribed on the Edelheer Altarpiece (Louvain).

1445: King Juan of Castile gives Passion triptych (now in Berlin) to the Charterhouse of Miraflores. (Partial copies in New York and Granada, mistaken by Panofsky for the real thing).

1449: Lionello d'Este (d.1450) shows a painting by "Rogier of Brussels" to Cyriaco d'Ancona at his palace in Ferrara. Bartolomeo Fazio later (1456) describes same work as a triptych, with Fall of Adam & Eve on one wing.

1450: Fazio reports that Rogier visited Rome in the papal jubilee year 1450; says he admired frescoes by Gentile da Fabriano in the Lateran Palace.. Fazio calls R. the pupil of Jan van Eyck (the other Flemish painter famous in Italy).

Also in 1450, RvW receives payment for "pictures" for Lionello d'Este (who died that year).

1451: Nicolas of Cusa mentions RvW as maximus pictor. (He was Bishop of Brixen, suggesting that RvW traveled home from Italy by way of the Alps.)

ca. 1452: Paints The Braque Triptych.

1455-59: Altarpiece with 2 shutters painted for the Abbot of S. Aubert Monastery, Cambrai. (What is this?)

1460-63: A young Italian painter, Zanetto Bugatto, sent to Brussels to study with VdW.

May 1462: Lends money to the Charterhouse of Scheut, near Brussels (founded 1454). RvW and wife also apparently donate paintings to the Charterhouse (date uncertain).

June 18, 1464: Rogier dies in Brussels. Memorial service held in Tournai, with candles donated by the Tournai Guild of St. Luke (painters' guild.)

1485/90: R. is praised by Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi as "discepol" of Jan van Eyck.

1520-21: Various paintings by Rogier mentioned as noteworthy in Albrecht Durer's travel diary of his journey to the Netherlands.

1526: Inventory of Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands, lists four pictures by RvW. (Three are lost; the fourth is a portrait of her grandfather, Charles the Bold, probably the original version of the portrait now in Berlin.)

1528: R's great-grandson, Rogier van der Weyden the Younger, is master in the Antwerp painters' guild.

1550: Giorgio Vasari records RvW as pupil of Jan van Eyck.

1570: Molanus, historian of Louvain, records him as "citizen and painter of Louvain."

1574: Philip II of Spain gives 4 paintings by RvW to his newly-founded monastery/palace of El Escorial.

1604: Carel van Mander, in his history of Netherlandish painters splits RvW into two(!): Rogier of Bruges, and Rogier van der Weyden of Brussels.

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