Nine small paintings on parchment, arranged in three rows of three within a single gilded frame, make up the group known as the Altarpiece of Joan the Mad. The scenes are attributed to Simon Bening (ca. 1483–1561) and are placed by the available sources in Ghent or Bruges in the sixteenth century. The ensemble is traditionally linked to Joanna I of Castile, called Joanna the Mad, although that association rests on tradition rather than on a documented record of ownership.
A Flemish Painter at the Close of Manuscript Illumination
Bening worked in Bruges in the decades when the great workshops of Flemish illumination were giving way to print. He was the last major figure of that tradition, sought by patrons across Europe, and he painted at a scale that asks for close looking rather than display. Devotional images of this kind served private prayer: some were bound into books of hours, others kept as independent panels before which an owner could kneel.
Scenes from the Life and Passion of Christ
The nine fields follow the narrative of Christ’s life. The Nativity occupies the center, set among ruins with figures pressing in at the edges; below it the Resurrection unfolds before the open tomb, and to its right a Coronation of the Virgin fills the upper half of its field with golden rays. The Crucifixion stands at the lower left beneath a darkened sky. Several scenes open onto the deep green, rock-strewn landscapes that Bening handled with particular invention, and the rose-colored mounts set each picture apart while holding the sequence together.
A Portable Altar for a Private Room
Arranged this way, the nine scenes do what a church retable does, at the size of a book — devotion compressed into something one person could face alone.
We have 1 facsimile edition of the manuscript "Altarpiece of Joan the Mad (Collection)": Retablo de Juana la Loca facsimile edition, published by Patrimonio Ediciones, 2004
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