(gentle music)
- [Steven] We're in one of the quietest parts
of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This is the Lehman Collection, reconstructed to look
like the interior of his apartment, with walls of silk
and furniture and some real treasures,
including a painting that we're standing in front of,
Petrus Christus's "A Goldsmith in his Shop".
- [Beth] When you walk into this room,
what you see mostly are religious paintings.
And with this painting,
we're looking at something that is secular,
although for a long time,
we thought it had a religious meaning.
- [Steven] It was only a few years ago
that a halo was removed from the man seated.
That halo was not original
but had thrown art historians for some time.
- [Beth] The other thing that we see
in this room are portraits.
And in fact, now that this halo has been removed,
we can see this painting much more in the light
of a portrait than a religious painting.
- [Steven] But this is one complicated portrait
because it includes five figures and lots and lots of stuff.
- [Beth] So for a long time, that man in red
was thought to be the patron saint of goldsmiths,
a saint who is especially associated
with the city of Bruges, which is where Petrus Christus
painted and an incredibly wealthy city,
part of the territories ruled by Philip the Good,
the Duke of Burgundy.
He was one of the wealthiest men in Europe.
- [Steven] We're looking in a jeweler's stall,
a small shop that would have opened up onto the street,
and if you look carefully and you can see a convex mirror
that's reflecting the street beyond us.
That is literally what is behind us
as we look at this painting.
- [Beth] It extends the space of the painting
so that we join these two figures
who are looking into the goldsmith's stall.
- [Steven] But there are already
two customers in that store.
- [Beth] And one of them, the female figure,
seems to be gesturing toward the goldsmith,
who holds in his hand a balance in which we see a ring,
and in his right hand, he's holding some weights
as if to balance, to weigh, the amount of gold in the ring.
- [Steven] And that balance
is so delicately held and painted.
There's a long history of representing a balance,
the weighing, in the history of art, but generally,
it's St. Michael at the end of time
weighing the goodness or evil of souls
to decide who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.
- [Beth] Standing next to the scales
is a container for the weights and money, gold and silver.
Behind the goldsmith, we see not only wares
that he's fashioned that are available, perhaps for sale
or to demonstrate the kinds of things he can make,
but we also see the raw goods of his trade.
- [Steven] I can make out coral, pearls,
both seed pearls and larger pearls,
what looks like amber.
There are fossilized shark teeth.
There's clear crystal and there's porphyry.
All of these exquisite and expensive materials.
- [Beth] And the wealth here is signified, in addition,
by the textiles worn by the couple,
- [Steven] especially the woman.
She wears this sumptuous outfit that is richly appointed.
There's so much gold in it.
Clearly, this is not a common woman.
- [Beth] If we look at the two figures in the back,
their faces seem much more generalized
than the figure in the foreground,
and when conservators have examined the painting,
they've noted that there is a lot more attention
paid to the underdrawing of the seated goldsmith
than of the couple in the back.
So it's likely that the figure in the front is a portrait.
Now, art historians think that the female figure
represents the grandniece of Philip the Good,
the Duke of Burgundy, who just at this time
had arranged a marriage for her with the king of Scotland.
So she's about to become the queen of Scotland
and Philip the Good, the Duke,
sent her off with incredible treasures for her marriage,
gold, silver, the most luxurious fabrics.
He spent a fortune, and one of the things he did
was give her gold and silver objects
commissioned from some goldsmiths in Bruges.
- [Steven] And so, now we're in the realm of conjecture,
but we think that this painting might have been commissioned
by the goldsmith himself, that is,
that this was something that he could have hung up
in his guildhall or perhaps even in his shop
to show off the fact that he had been patronized
by Philip the Good, but it's important to note
that the woman is not a portrait
of Philip the Good's grandniece.
That would have been presumptuous
to include her in this kind of painting.
- [Beth] We're not sure who is the male figure
as we're not sure which goldsmith this is.
There were several who furnished items
for Philip the Good for his grandniece.
The idea is, I'm a talented and sought-after goldsmith,
and I have royal patrons.
There's possibly another reading here that art historians
like to offer, and that is one much more in line
with the traditions of the Northern Renaissance,
where we tend to see objects from everyday life
that also have a religious interpretation,
much like the scales we talked about.
- [Steven] In the mirror, outside we can see two young men,
well-dressed, with a falcon, which is sometimes read
as a symbol of pride and greed.
And so, there's this contrast that's being constructed
between the outside world, the world where things
are less perfect, whereas inside,
you have this notion of harmony and balance.
The other object on the counter in front of us is a belt,
and some art historians read that
as also associated with matrimony, with the wedding.
- [Beth] But look at what Petrus Christus can do.
He has spent so much effort creating an incredible illusion
of reality, the way that sash hangs over this tabletop
where we can see the grain of the wood,
the way that light glistens on the metal surfaces here,
like that gold around the convex mirror,
these precise shadows that are cast.
Everything is painted with such detail
that you get the sense that it was important
to the artist and the patron that all of these objects
be represented as realistically as possible.
- [Steven] There's an interesting relationship in the North
between the representation of jewels and divinity.
In so many paintings by Jan van Eyck, for example,
God is shown encrusted with jewels.
And so, here in this more secular context, it's important
to remember that lavish jewelry could be a means
with which to represent the divine.
- [Beth] We know that some of the objects
are destined for the church.
For example, we see a crystal container,
sitting on top of that a pelican,
which is a symbol of God's sacrifice for mankind.
This is a container that likely would have held the wafers,
the bread, that became the body of Christ
during the sacrament of the Eucharist during mass.
Look at how carefully Christus has painted the reflections
on those objects or the wooden shutters that have opened
in the window, a kind of attention to everyday facts.
That's an important part of Renaissance art.
- [Steven] And all of this specificity,
all of this extraordinarily rich color and texture
is a result of the innovation of oil paint,
which Flemish artists had mastered in the 15th century
and which we see here brilliantly worked.
This is oil paint that allows for the distinction
of the stitches of gold in the woman's dress,
as opposed to the clarity of the mirror
or the cracks that we can see in the mirror.
It allows for the softness of the velvets
versus the slippery, hard quality of the coral.
It is literally oil that makes this painting possible.
(gentle music)