Focus on Portrait of a Carthusian and discuss the Halo and 1994 restoration.
Portrait of a Carthusian featured a halo above the monk's head when it was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1944. However, halos are extremely rare in Early Netherlandish painting and the one in Portrait of a Carthusian had long been an object of speculation. Finally in 1994, in preparation for the Met's exhibition Petrus Christus: Renaissance Master of Bruges, the authenticity of the halo was publicly examined by a panel of Early Netherlandish specialists and determined to be an addition. The team generally agreed that halo was probably added in Spain in the 17th century—imitating an Italian trend—where it became part of the collection of Don Ramon de Oms, viceroy of Majorca, who sold the work to American industrialist Jules Bache in 1911. The team recommended that the halo be removed to make the painting more aesthetically authentic. Christus was one of the first Netherlandish painters to really play with the illusion of space and light. The addition of the halo, though, forced the viewer to look at the foreground and therefore framed the space in a way Christus never intended. Since the removal of the halo, the Met has gone on to delete other dubious halos from Christus works, most notably in Portrait of a Goldsmith.
Petrus Christus Carthusian panel industrialist Majorca Christ Jules Bache halo Early Netherlandish painting Metropolitan Museum of Art