Rogier van der Weyden

Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1399–1464) was born Roger de la Pasture in Tournai, the son of a knife maker. In 1427 he entered the workshop of Robert Campin there, and he became a master painter in 1432. By 1435 he had settled in Brussels, where the next year he was made painter to the town, a post created for him at a time when the city was the chief residence of the Burgundian court. He painted for Philip the Good and his circle, for the Este and the Medici, and probably for John II of Castile, who gave the Miraflores Altarpiece to the Charterhouse near Burgos in 1445. The Descent from the Cross, now in the Prado, is the best documented of his works and is still regarded as his central achievement. His figures carry an expressive pathos, rendered in an unusually broad range of colour, and by the later fifteenth century he had eclipsed van Eyck in popularity. Traces of his manner reached painters in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Four works here: The Crucifixion Diptych, The Crucifixion Triptych, The Descent from the Cross and The Saint John Altarpiece.