Jean Gossaert - Saint Donatien

This work depicts Saint Donatien, bishop of Reims († 389), identified by the wheel bearing five candles. Legend has it that as a child, he was thrown into a river and saved by a man who threw a wheel into the water, spiked with five candles, which stopped at a spot where the child could be fished out. The back of the panel features the coat of arms of Jean Carondelet, advisor to Philip the Fair and Charles V.

Jean Gossaert'‘s work is situated at the crossroads of two traditions : one Nordic, still inspired by the realism of Jan Van Eyck and the Flemish Primitives of the previous century, and the other Italian, linked to the innovations of the Renaissance, as evidenced by the architectural background of the work and the characteristic treatment of Saint Donatien's face.