Securely dated to 1446, Petrus Christus’ Portrait of Edward Grimston is among the earliest surviving panel paintings to place a single individual in a described environment specific to them – possibly the earliest surviving. How might we account for this phenomenon? This thesis sets out to re-evaluate the ‘house interior’ in early Netherlandish panel painting, c.1400-50, tracing the emergence of the first portraits of secular individuals in rooms of their own.
The early Netherlandish interior is traditionally explained through religious symbolism, or as a sign of social status, or for its spatial ingenuities. While absorbing these approaches, this study shifts gear. It emphasises the need to see the communicative potency of such famously well-furnished fifteenth-century architectural settings against a broader temporal sweep. Following the question historically, acknowledging the longstanding significant relationship, between sacred figures and their shrine-like encasements, it pursues what happens to this relationship in Netherlandish panel painting c.1430s (the moment of enhanced focus on inviting the religious image into recognisable, earthly settings). The significance of these older architectural conventions is appropriated, transferred onto the secular depictions, manipulated for diverse ends – with important consequences.
Beyond its sustained investigations of form, the thesis provides new information about the patrons and commissions of several important paintings. For Grimston’s indoor surroundings conjure not only the time and place he occupied, but also, as evoked by documentation, a very personal interpretation of the man himself. Weaving together enquiries into media, composition and reception, material culture, and the motivations and influences of religious and social contexts, an alternative genealogy is traced for the ‘interior’ in painting. The argument helps us to better understand the origins of that significant genre, whose use would continue to serve multiple purposes in picture-making right up to the present day.
