Robert Bevan on the history of the burnt, dismembered, and looted Ghent Altarpiece
When an entire cathedral has been searched six times and its floor x-rayed 10 meters deep to try and find a stolen painting, you know it’s an important work of art that’s gone missing. Since 1934, the hunt’s been on for just one lost painted panel of the 20 that make up the Ghent Altarpiece.
Also known as the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, Hubert and Jan van Eyck’s 1432 Flemish masterpiece was one of the first large-scale oil paintings and was created for St. Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, now Belgium. At the Altarpiece’s centre is the representation of Christ as a sacred lamb bleeding into a goblet – the legendary Holy Grail.
That the Altarpiece survives at all is something of a miracle. Its folding panels have been the victim of more than a dozen major crimes – it’s been burnt, earmarked for destruction by rioting Calvinist iconoclasts, stolen repeatedly, wrenched apart and almost blown up while stashed down a mine.
