medievalpoc:

As an aside: In regard to Joos Van Cleve, The Guild of Saint Luke, and the use of live models for these paintings…these two Balthazars are almost certainly the same guy. Obviously one of these paintings a a bit more detailed, but the resemblance in hair, clothing style and pose is very noticeable.

The manner in which most of these paintings were produced is that the Master would do individual figure sketches from life, and then use those drawings to render outlined figures in a composition on the panel or canvas.

Then, the upper-level associates, journeymen and apprentices would fill in various planes of the painting as assigned and overseen by the Master. Often, the master would do the faces and hands himself, as well as any other especially detailed or important portions of the painting. For some paintings, the Master would appoint a chief to oversee the production and not participate at all. Those paintings are usually attributed to “the workshop of-“.

It wasn’t unusual practice at the time to use the same sketch in multiple paintings, or to use a previous painting as a model for another one. In fact, many artists even used other artist’s paintings as models.

For example, this painting is “After” Joos Van Cleve, which means it was not painted by him, and possibly not even painted by his workshop but a copy from another artist who had viewed the Van Cleve painting. In Medieval Europe, painting was considered more like a “craft” than the way we view art today, as a kind of personal form of self-expression.

As for who this particular Balthazar was, we’ll almost certainly never know. He most likely lived either in Antwerp, Sweden, where the workshop of Van Cleve was located, or was a member of the French Court where Van Cleve visited and painted Francis and Eleonore, the King and Queen.

His powerful carriage and overall glow of health (and age! being over 40 in the 1500s was kind of its own accomplishment) lends credence that he must have been a powerful man of the times…but it is also possible he was a relative of someone who worked at the shop or was just Bill, the Antwerp cobbler, inexplicably blessed with teeth, long life and being a total medieval DILF.

haha yes yesss “inexplicably blessed with teeth”

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   I love how in that painting on the right his chalice is just kind of floating in his hand. Like dude you couldn’t get...

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