Early works (before 1464) Bouts' earliest work is the ''
Triptych of the Virgin's Life in the Prado (Madrid), dated about 1445. The Deposition Altarpiece
in Granada (Capilla Real) probably also dates to this period, around 1450–1460. A dismembered canvas altarpiece—now in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (Brussels), the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles), National Gallery (London), Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena), and a Swiss private collection—with the same dimensions as the Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament
may belong to this period. The Louvre Lamentation (Pietà)'' is another early work.
Documented works The
Last Supper is the central panel of
Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament, commissioned from Bouts by the Leuven Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament in 1464. All of the central room's
orthogonals (lines imagined to be behind and perpendicular to the picture plane that converge at a vanishing point) lead to a single vanishing point in the centre of the mantelpiece above Christ's head. However the small side room has its own vanishing point, and neither it nor the vanishing point of the main room falls on the horizon of the landscape seen through the windows. The
Last Supper is the second dated work (after
Petrus Christus'
Virgin and Child Enthroned with St. Jerome and St. Francis in Frankfurt, dated 1457) to display an understanding of Italian
linear perspective. Scholars also have noted that Bouts'
Last Supper was the first
Flemish panel painting to depict the
Last Supper. In this central panel, Bouts did not focus on the biblical narrative itself but instead presented Christ in the role of a priest performing the
consecration of the Eucharistic host from the
Catholic Mass. This contrasts strongly with other Last Supper depictions, which often focused on
Judas's betrayal or on Christ's comforting of John. Bouts also added to the complexity of this image by including four servants (two in the window and two standing), all dressed in Flemish attire. Although once identified as the artist himself and his two sons, these servants are most likely portraits of the confraternity's members responsible for commissioning the altarpiece. The
Last Supper was the central part of the
altarpiece in the
St. Peter's Church, Leuven. The
Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament has four additional panels, two on each side. Because these were taken to the museums in Berlin and Munich in the 19th century, the reconstruction of the original altarpiece has been difficult. Today it is thought that the panel with Abraham and Melchizedek is above the Passover Feast on the left wing, while the Gathering of the Manna is above Elijah and the Angel on the right wing. All of these are
typological precursors to the Last Supper in the central panel. After attaining the rank of city painter of Leuven in 1468, Bouts received a commission to paint two more works for the
Town Hall. The first was an altarpiece of the
Last Judgment (1468–1470), which exists today only in the two wings with the
Road to Paradise and
The Fall of the Damned in the
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille (France), and a fragmentary
Bust of Christ from the central panel in the
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. After this, he turned to the larger commission for the Justice Panels (1470–1475), which occupied him until his death in 1475. He completed one panel and began a second, both depicting the life of the 11th-century Holy Roman Emperor
Otto III. in New York (
Metropolitan Museum of Art), excellent copies of which exist in the
Bargello in Florence and the
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. This composition follows the formula of the miraculous icon of Notre-Dame-des-Grâces, which was installed in the cathedral of
Cambrai (France) in 1454. The
Virgin and Child in the National Gallery (London) is the largest and most ambitious of these Marian pictures. , London In the realm of portraiture, Bouts expanded upon the tradition established by
Robert Campin,
Jan van Eyck,
Rogier van der Weyden, and
Petrus Christus. His 1462
Portrait of a Man in the
National Gallery (London) is the first instance of a sitter shown in three-quarter view before a discernible background with a glimpse of the landscape out the window. Also widely attributed to Bouts is the
Portrait of a Man in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), which resembles some of the figures in the artist's late Justice Panels of 1470–1475. Other portraits associated with Bouts, such as those in Washington (
National Gallery of Art) and Antwerp (
Royal Museum of Fine Arts), are more problematic.
Other works '', c. 1455-1460. Louvre|left The
Last Supper and Justice Panels are the only works known to be definitely done by Bouts. The remaining panels from the
Last Judgment Altarpiece (datable to 1468–1470) and the triptych
The Martyrdom of St Erasmus (before 1466) are also fairly secure attributions. Aside from these, a number of other paintings have been attributed to him. These are:
Christ in the House of Simon,
Christ in the House of Simon and
Nativity fragment with the Virgin at Prayer in the
Staatliche Museen. The triptych the
Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus (
Groeningemuseum),
Virgin Enthroned with Four Angels (
Capilla Real, Granada), and an
Annunciation (
Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon). The
National Gallery holds
The Entombment, the
Virgin Enthroned with St. Peter and St. Paul, and
The Virgin and Child. Others are
Saint James the Greater (
Museu de Arte Sacra do Funchal, Madeira, Portugal),
Ecce Agnus Dei, (Alte Pinakothek),
Moses before the Burning Bush (
Philadelphia Museum of Art),
Bust of Christ (
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen),
Virgin and Child (
National Gallery of Art, Washington), and a
Resurrection in the
Norton Simon Museum of Art. Two are in the
Louvre – a
Nativity fragment with St. Joseph and the
Virgin and Child Enthroned in a Niche. Two Boutsian works in the
Alte Pinakothek in
Munich have perplexed art historians. One is the so-called
Pearl of Brabant triptych, which writers as early as 1902 tried to separate from Bouts' authentic works. Recent research seems to refute this attempt. The other is a pair of panels from an altarpiece depicting the Passion, respectively showing the
Betrayal of Christ and the
Resurrection. For a long time these were considered some of Bouts' earliest works, but
dendrochronological evidence now places them around the time of his death in 1475. Schone's 1938 invention of a "Master of the Munich Betrayal" is a more appropriate attribution. ==Family==