DescriptionJustly celebrated as one of the most famous masterpieces of Northern Renaissance art, this work shows a goldsmith in a tiny shop outfitted with the finely wrought civic, secular, and ecclesiastic wares of his trade, displayed on the shelves at the right. Commissioned by the goldsmith's guild of Bruges, the painting is a virtual advertisement of its services. The main figure may be Saint Eligius, patron saint of goldsmiths, as traditionally believed, or a realistic depiction—perhaps even a portrait—of an actual goldsmith in fifteenth-century Bruges.

 

 

Standing in the goldsmith's shop is an aristocratic young couple in sumptuous garb buying a wedding ring that is being weighed on a small handheld scale. An elaborately displayed sash or girdle used in betrothal ceremonies, a further reference to matrimony, extends over the open ledge of the shop into the space of the viewer. The convex mirror at the right, which reflects the market square beyond the counter, is an even bolder illusionistic device linking the pictorial space to that of the viewer. Seen in the mirror are two dandified male figures, one of whom holds a falcon. Their idleness contrasts markedly to the industriousness of the goldsmith in his tidy, well-stocked shop and is perhaps an allusion to sloth, one of the seven deadly sins.

Signatures, Inscriptions, and MarkingsInscriptions: Signed and dated in white paint (bottom): m petr[vs] xpi me· ·fecit·ao 1449· (Master Petrus Christus made me in the year 1449) [with the artist's emblem, which resembles a clock escapement combined with a heart]

ProvenanceA. Merli, Bremen, Germany; his sale, Frankfurt am Main, September 11, 1815, lot 144; [Silberberg]; Gerhard Seibel, Elberfeld (lent by him to the Central-Museum zu Düsseldorf); Salomon Oppenheim the younger (d. 1828), Cologne, by 1825; by descent to his grandson, Albert, Freiherr von Oppenheim (d. 1912), Cologne; his sale, Rudolf Lepke, Berlin, March 19, 1918, lot 6; Busch, Mainz; [Y. Perdoux, Paris]; acquired by Philip Lehman from Perdoux in 1920.