This panel is one of four surviving fragments of a large altarpiece that showed the lives of various French saints, many with royal connections. Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor, kneels beside an altar at which a priest is performing Mass. At the top an angel flies down from heaven with a divine proclamation.
This is one of the legends of Saint Giles, a popular French saint. Charlemagne had committed a sin so awful he was unable to confess it. While visiting him, Saint Giles celebrated mass and prayed for him. An angel appeared bearing a letter; it explained that because of Giles’s prayer, the sin was forgiven.
The church in the painting is based on a real one: the royal mausoleum of Saint Denis in Paris. This is the only surviving view of it as it was in the late Middle Ages, albeit somewhat simplified.
Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor, kneels beside an altar at which a priest is performing Mass; the priest raises his hand to lift up the bread of the Eucharist. At the top an angel flies down from heaven with a divine proclamation bearing Latin wording: ‘By the merit of Saint Giles, remission of sins is granted to Charles.’
This is one of the legends of Saint Giles, a popular French saint who was thought to have founded a famous monastery, Saint-Gilles-du-Gard near Arles. According to the Golden Legend, Charlemagne had committed a sin so awful he was unable to confess it (it was rumoured to be incest or necrophilia). When visiting the king, Saint Giles celebrated mass and prayed for him. An angel appeared, bearing a letter which explained that, because of Giles’s prayer, the sin was forgiven.
This panel is one of four surviving fragments of a large polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece) showing lives from various French saints, many with royal connections. Another panel, Saint Giles and the Deer, is also in our collection; the saint is recognisably the same man in both. The bystanders here are all highly individualised too and presumably based on studies from life, even if not intended as particular portraits. The church is based on a real one – the royal mausoleum of Saint Denis in Paris – and this is the only surviving view of it as it was in the late Middle Ages, albeit somewhat simplified. On the right is the tomb of Dagobert I, who died in 639 and was an early generous benefactor of the church; it still stands next to the high altar in Saint Denis. The gold retable on the altar was given by Charles the Bald, who died in 877, and was destroyed at the French Revolution, as was the great gold cross of Saint Eligius on top of it.
Saint Peter appears on the reverse side of this panel, painted in grisaille to look like a statue in a niche. This was a very popular way of showing saints in Netherlandish altarpieces – you see it in Memling’s Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist. The artist of this panel had perhaps worked in the Netherlands at some point.
As in Saint Giles and the Deer many alterations are clearly visible, and technical analysis has shown that changes were made at every stage of both the underdrawing and the later painting process. For instance, among many changes, the cross of Saint Eligius was drawn and partially painted at a different angle, and the altarpiece was drawn with a semicircular top and showed the Crucifixion. The man on the right, with just his head and neck visible behind a kneeling torch-bearer, was added at a very late stage over the paint of the tomb behind him. The artist had an imperfect grasp of linear perspective: not only do the lines recede in different directions, but the Turkish carpet in front of the altar seems to tip at an alarming angle.
