Elisabeth Dhanens (1915 – 11 March 2014) was a Belgian art historian specialising in
Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting, traditionally known as the Flemish Primitives, refers to the work of artists active in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period. It flourished especiall ...
. Dhanens studied art history at
Ghent University
Ghent University ( nl, Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) is a public research university located in Ghent, Belgium.
Established before the state of Belgium itself, the university was founded by the Dutch King William I in 1817, when the ...
at the Higher Institute of Art, where she earned a Ph.D in 1945. Her dissertation was a monograph on the early-16th century artist , published in 1948.
[Dictionary of Art Historians](_blank)
Retrieved October 25, 2014. From 1945 to 1952 Dhanens was a researcher in
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
at the
Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage
The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA, for ''Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium - Institut Royal du Patrimoine Artistique'') is a Belgian federal institute of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO). The insti ...
,
where she worked in the documentation laboratory. From 1952 to 1976 she held a position as art inspector in
East Flanders
, native_name_lang =
, settlement_type = Province of Belgium
, image_flag = Flag of Oost-Vlaanderen.svg
, flag_size =
, image_shield = Wapen van O ...
's Art Patrimony, where she collected inventories from churches for the government.
Based on field work in Italy in the early 1950s she published a monograph about
Jean Boulogne in 1956, which earned her an award from the Royal Flemish Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts and a year later a
Fulbright scholarship
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
- allowing her to study in the United States.
In 1965 she published an eight-volume inventory of "churches, cities, and villages in East Flanders". The inventory of the
St Bavo's Cathedral in
Ghent
Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...
began her lifelong passion for artists
Hubert
Hubert is a Germanic masculine given name, from ''hug'' "mind" and '' beraht'' "bright". It also occurs as a surname.
Saint Hubertus or Hubert (c. 656 – 30 May 727) is the patron saint of hunters, mathematicians, opticians, and metalworkers ...
and
Jan van Eyck
Jan van Eyck ( , ; – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. Ac ...
. In her capacity as inspector, she had access to original sources which began a long scholarly examination of the ''
Ghent Altarpiece
The ''Adoration of the Mystic Lamb'', also called the ''Ghent Altarpiece'' ( nl, De aanbidding van het Lam Gods), is a large and complex 15th-century polyptych altarpiece in St Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. It was begun around the mid-1420 ...
''. The original sources allowed her to separate the work from "erroneous interpretations and mystifications" and "situate it in its original context". Additionally she studied 12th century theologian,
Rupert of Deutz
Rupert of Deutz ( la, Rupertus Tuitiensis; c. 1075/1080 – c. 1129) was an influential Benedictine theologian, exegete and writer on liturgical and musical topics.
Life
Rupert was most likely born in or around Liège in the years 1075-108 ...
's commentaries which she considered an important iconographical influence on the van Eycks. She published ''Van Eyck: The Ghent Altarpiece'' in 1973. Throughout the 1970s she continued to publish about the van Eyck brothers, culminating with the 1980 monograph ''Hubert and Jan van Eyck''.
The monograph was eagerly anticipated, according to
Lorne Campbell, who wrote of it on publication that "it must take its place immediately as the standard work on the artists". According to Campbell, Dhanens brought a fresh vision to existing van Eyck scholarship, much of which had been contradictory, saying about Dhanens that she "has a considerably greater respect for historical truth and for logical deduction than most of the art historians who have previously written about the van Eycks."
[Campell, Lorne. ''Hubert and Jan van Eyck''. ''The Burlington Magazine'', Vol. 124, No. 947 (Feb., 1982), pp. 106-107]
In the following years she researched and published papers about artists who lived in Ghent between 1432 and 1465, advancing the theory that the ''Ghent Altarpiece'' influenced painters in Ghent during those years. She based these observations on thorough "historical, iconological, and stylistic research". From that research came a monograph about
Hugo van der Goes
Hugo van der Goes (c. 1430/1440 – 1482) was one of the most significant and original Flemish painters of the late 15th century. Van der Goes was an important painter of altarpieces as well as portraits. He introduced important innovations in pa ...
published in 1998, and studies about
Rogier van der Weyden
Rogier van der Weyden () or Roger de la Pasture (1399 or 140018 June 1464) was an early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commissioned single and diptych portraits. He was highly ...
. She believed the
Uffizi
The Uffizi Gallery (; it, Galleria degli Uffizi, italic=no, ) is a prominent art museum located adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums ...
''Entombment'', attributed to van der Weyden in 1832, was instead painted by
Hans Memling
Hans Memling (also spelled Memlinc; c. 1430 – 11 August 1494) was a painter active in Flanders, who worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. He was born in the Middle Rhine region and probably spent his childhood in Mainz. He ...
.
Dhanens was a member of the
Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts
The Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts ( nl, Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, or KVAB) is one of an independent learned society of science and arts of the Flemish Community in Belgium. ...
.
From the 1970s to the 1990s she sat on a number of boards in Belgium and edited biographies about the van Eycks. The focus of her scholarship was to research original documents and to place the works in proper historical context. She revised all the documents to do with van der Weyden up to 1800.
She died on March 11, 2014 at age 98.
[Elisabeth Dhanens is deceased]
. Flemish Primitives. Retrieved October 25, 2014.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dhanens, Elisabeth
Belgian art historians
Writers from Ghent
1915 births
2014 deaths
Scholars of Netherlandish art
Women art historians