The central Deity of the Ghent Altarpiece

The central Deity of the Ghent Altarpiece

The red-robed figure at the summit of the open Ghent Altarpiece commands attention before a name is attached to him. He blesses with his right hand, holds a long sceptre in his left and sits beneath concentric bands of lettering. A second crown rests below his feet. The archived Flemish Art Collection catalogue records three interpretations: God the Father, Christ, or a deliberate combination of their attributes. Its title “God” therefore introduces a question that the image's confident authority does not resolve by itself.^[1]

Saint Bavo's Cathedral takes a similarly inclusive approach. Its Dutch guide explains that the throne proclaims almighty God in divine majesty, while the figure can refer to either Father or Son. Here, “the Deity” identifies the central divine presence without concealing that disagreement. The panel belongs to the altarpiece completed in 1432 for the Ghent chapel of Joos Vijd and Elisabeth Borluut. To understand it, follow the figure's relationships with the neighbouring Mary and John the Baptist, the Lamb below and the particular words and materials surrounding the throne.^[2]

Details from The central Deity of the Ghent Altarpiece

1

Compare the clasp and robe before and during treatment

Left: before treatment. Right: during overpaint removal. Compare the small ornaments beside the clasp and the darker recesses in the red robe. Unmodified 1,333 × 474-pixel paired image published in KIK-IRPA’s 10 December 2024 release, page 6, photograph 9. © Sint-Baafskathedraal Gent, www.artinflanders.be; photo KIK-IRPA. The publication labels a treatment stage, not the campaign’s final appearance or the photographs’ exact capture dates.

A face held steady above a field of red

The face is almost frontal, framed by dark hair and a divided beard. Its relatively restrained modelling makes an important contrast with the accumulation of ornament around it. The eyebrows, eyes and mouth remain legible within a much larger structure of gold, gems and rays. The head neither turns towards one neighbour nor follows the blessing hand. It supplies a stable centre while other parts of the image direct attention outwards and downwards.

The raised hand occupies its own clear area beside the shoulder. Its fingers separate against the patterned background, making a gesture readable across the panel. The opposite hand has a different task: it encloses the slender sceptre. One gesture communicates through the disposition of fingers; the other establishes possession of an object. Looking between them reveals how the apparent stillness of the seated figure contains several carefully differentiated actions.

The robe expands that stillness into a monumental shape. Broad red areas swell over the knees, interrupted by dark folds and by the bright, ornamented border. At the centre, a fastening, hanging cord and lower folds create small changes of direction. The garment is not one continuous red silhouette. Its overlapping edges and recesses persuade the eye that a seated body exists within it, even though very little anatomy is exposed.

Father, Christ and the two directions of reading

A horizontal reading begins with the central figure's companions. Mary sits to the viewer's left, reading; the Baptist occupies the right. The Metropolitan Museum's account interprets this as a Deësis, with Christ as High Priest between the two intercessors. That identification draws strength from the relationship of the three figures, rather than from an isolated object held by the central one. A reproduction that removes the neighbours also removes much of this argument's visual basis.^[3]

A vertical reading leads elsewhere. Maximiliaan Martens explains the possibility of seeing Father, Spirit and Son along the central axis: enthroned figure, dove and Lamb. He also qualifies it, noting questions about the dove's original status. His discussion sets the Father interpretation beside the Christ-centred Deësis, and reports Danny Praet's proposal that the unresolved identity might express divine incomprehensibility. These are interpretations of a complex ensemble, not a surviving explanation dictated by Hubert or Jan.^[4]

Neither direction should be treated as a diagram that cancels the other. The Lamb can represent Christ's sacrifice while an enthroned Christ expresses another aspect of the same divine person. Equally, a Father above the sacrificial Son offers a coherent relationship. The question is which associations the particular arrangement sustains. The composition supplies a central authority and multiple connections, while the exclusive name remains contested.

The Father designation has a long history. In his poem praising the altarpiece, published in 1565, Lucas de Heere invites readers to notice the Father's divine countenance alongside John and Mary. The passage survives in W. Waterschoot's modern Dutch edition. It establishes a dated early response to the central group, not proof that every fifteenth-century spectator used that title or that the alternative Christ reading was impossible. Historical reception and original intention are different questions.^[5]

Read the throne before reading the garment

There are several writing surfaces in this panel. W. H. James Weale's 1912 catalogue transcribes the great arched inscription around the throne as praising divine might, goodness and generous reward. At the base, another text associates the figure with life without death, youth without ageing, joy without sorrow and security without fear. The messages surround the body at different heights: sovereignty and beneficence above, conditions of blessed existence below.^[6]

Their placement matters. The arched bands turn language into a canopy; the lower line establishes a threshold immediately above the tiled foreground. The viewer can therefore read from the figure towards the surrounding promises or approach the body through the words at its feet. Lettering is built into the apparent architecture. It does not behave like a detachable modern label placed next to an otherwise self-contained picture.

The designation of almighty God fits the Father interpretation, but the cathedral does not regard it as excluding Christ. Christian divine titles can carry associations wider than a single person depicted in one role. The inscription's praise and the figure's identity must consequently be considered together without being treated as identical problems. Reading the language carefully provides firmer information about the image's claims than simply repeating its familiar modern title.^[2]

Pearl letters and the meaning of Sabaoth

A different kind of writing appears on the costume. The name Sabaoth is formed in pearls on the band crossing the chest. Jacques Paviot, with Dina Goren, discusses it in an original French study of Greek and Hebrew inscriptions associated with Van Eyck. He places such Hebrew-derived divine names within biblical and Christian textual traditions. Their occurrence need not imply that the painter had acquired fluency in Hebrew or was copying an entire Hebrew passage.^[7]

The same study examines the pearl lettering along the lower robe. Paviot recognises Latin royal titles, including rex regum and dominus dominantium, expressed through a mixed and sometimes irregular use of Greek and Latin letterforms. He relates them to the kingly rider in Revelation. The important distinction is between the language of the words and the alphabet used to represent them: unfamiliar-looking characters do not automatically constitute a new language or a secret signature.^[7]

The pearls also remain convincing ornaments. Rounded highlights, shadowed intervals and the scale of the letters make the writing appear attached to the textile rather than printed over it. Reading thus asks the viewer to do two things at once: decipher a title and recognize a costly material. The garment can declare divine rule through words while its imagined workmanship gives that declaration an elaborate physical form.

Pelicans and the name of Christ in the background

The background has its own text and imagery. Visit Gent identifies the repeating pelican as the bird imagined in medieval tradition to nourish its young with blood from its breast. Its sacrificial meaning is Christological. The banderole above carries the abbreviated name IHESVS XPS, identifying Jesus Christ. This belongs to the brocade pattern behind the figure; it should be distinguished from Sabaoth on the chest and the royal titles at the hem.^[8]

Watch: Jan van Eyck in context

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Jan van Eyck, The Ghent Altarpiece (2 of 2)

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The repetition makes the motif easy to overlook. At a distance, the cloth reads as a dense field of gold and dark pattern; closer inspection yields a bird, young, surrounding foliage and a name. Sacred reference is therefore embedded in the image's demonstration of luxury. The background contributes to the identity debate, but its small repeated symbols also operate as a sustained devotional setting rather than a single decisive caption.

The combination is more informative than assigning every clue to a rigid list. A divine name, a Christological bird, a royal title and the two neighbouring intercessors work through different materials and at different scales. Their coexistence explains why the Deity remains a productive subject for research. It also gives a practical route through the picture: distinguish each sign's location and function before asking whether it supports one interpretation more strongly.

Painted jewels and two kinds of crown

The circular clasp on the chest is a concentrated display of fictive goldsmiths' work. Red, green and blue stones sit among rounded pearls and smaller bright points. Its symmetry holds the centre of the costume, but variations in colour and reflection keep the surface lively. Some stones appear flatter and darker; pearls present small, rounded highlights. These are differences in how materials are pictured, not a chemical identification of the gems represented.

The clasp also brings several levels of scale together. From a distance, it is a bright circle anchoring the robe. In the published close comparison, it becomes an arrangement of settings, beads and tiny joins. Alongside it, the green bands have their own borders and tassels. Following the photograph from one to the other helps distinguish decoration that is geometrically ordered from textile elements that hang under their own apparent weight.

The headpiece and the crown on the floor offer another contrast. Weale describes the former as a tiara with three jewelled bands and falling lappets; he interprets the latter in relation to earthly kingdoms. That historical explanation should be distinguished from what the image directly supplies: one crown is worn high above the body, another is placed below it. Their separation establishes a hierarchy without requiring the viewer to name an actual historical pope or ruler.^[6]

The background really has relief

The cloth of honour is materially different from a pattern achieved solely through brushwork. An original 2024 conference contribution by Sophie Kirkpatrick and colleagues explains the applied-brocade technique: tin foil was pressed into a mould, supported with a filler, attached to the painting, gilded and painted. The resulting relief imitated sumptuous silk and gold-thread fabric. Their research used scanning on the panels and analysis of selected samples to investigate both the materials and their deterioration.^[9]

This makes the central setting a combination of illusion and actual surface construction. The figure appears before a textile, but the imitation includes physically raised detail. A digital reproduction can reveal its pattern while flattening that relief. The gold's appearance also depends on illumination and the condition of the layers above it. A dark photograph and a brighter one do not necessarily record a simple change in the original pigment used for the cloth.

A 2026 preprint by Kirkpatrick and colleagues adds precise findings. It describes rectangular brocade sections measuring approximately nineteen by twelve centimetres behind the Deity, differing from those on the neighbouring panels. Across the studied brocades, the team identified tin-corrosion products and extensive disruption between layers. The work involved Belgian laboratories and French research facilities, including ESRF in Grenoble and Synchrotron SOLEIL. These investigations address the construction and survival of the decoration, rather than merely its iconographic meaning.^[10]

The preprint also distinguishes established results from further hypotheses. Possible tin compounds formed through interaction with organic binders require additional work; they should not be reported as a fully resolved diagnosis for every area behind the Deity. Some detailed sample illustrations concern Mary or John. They inform the study of the three cloths together without making each microscopic observation equally demonstrated at every point on this panel.^[10]

Conservator Kathleen Froyen's July 2025 account explains the practical consequence. After varnish removal improved the brocades' appearance, the team still had to investigate whether later paint could safely be removed and how far treatment should proceed. Recovering lustre and preserving fragile relief involve related decisions. Her account makes clear why a promising cleaning result on the robe cannot automatically prescribe the same treatment for the cloth behind it.^[11]

A red robe recovered through several stages

The treatment comparison near the opening comes from KIK-IRPA's December 2024 press release. The left view is labelled before treatment; the right records overpaint removal in progress. Around the clasp and green band, newly visible small ornaments and more varied red modelling can be compared directly. Its caption describes an intermediate stage, so the right photograph should not be called the final restored appearance.^[12]

The release reports that the three central cloaks were especially affected by sixteenth-century additions, about half of which had been removed at that date. This figure applies to a dated progress account of the central group, not a measured statement that half of the Deity panel was overpaint or a current completion percentage. The photographic comparison is strongest when its limited field and documented stage remain explicit.^[12]

Close looking consequently benefits from knowing which image is being used. The prominent archival view on this page preserves an earlier mounting around the complete panel. The treatment detail removes that larger context but makes a small area more legible. One helps locate the robe, lower writing and floor crown; the other allows scrutiny of passages changed by conservation. Their purposes differ, and their colours should not be compared as though they were made under identical photographic conditions.

Paris, a copy in Berlin and a later imperial image

The central panels have a different history from the wings sold to Berlin. KIK's March 2024 dossier records their confiscation in 1794, their stay in Paris through 1815 and return to Ghent in 1816. It also states that their tops were shortened during the Paris period. That history belongs to the three enthroned panels; it should not be exchanged with the later operation that split certain side panels through their thickness. The dossier additionally identified overpainted tiled floors as requiring investigation.^[13]

A central Deity in Berlin can instead refer to a later copy. M Leuven's French account of Michiel Coxcie's reproduction describes his commission for Philip II and his work in Ghent from 1557. It records the copy's Deity and Adoration panels entering the Prussian royal collection in 1823. The museum also stresses that Coxcie adapted features rather than copying everything mechanically. His panel is a historical witness with its own choices and travels, not the original central figure displaced from Ghent.^[14]

The Paris episode connects the painting with another proposed afterlife. In its French dossier on art and power, Musée Granet discusses Ingres's Napoleon I on His Imperial Throne of 1806. It attributes to Robert Rosenblum the argument that the Ghent Deity provided a model available to Ingres in the Louvre. The comparison concerns frontal enthronement and the imagery of supreme authority. It is an attributed art-historical interpretation, not a surviving declaration by Ingres that he copied this panel.^[15]

Such comparisons make the original's pictorial power easier to describe. Seated frontality, concentrated regalia and a commanding red garment can communicate sovereignty beyond their first religious setting. Yet the Ghent figure's writing, pelican brocade and place between Mary and John continue to determine its specific meanings. Its later use as a model of authority does not retrospectively turn it into a portrait of an earthly monarch.

A central presence whose research continues

The whole ensemble credits Hubert and Jan, but the division of their work within this upper panel remains under investigation. KIK-IRPA's current project deliberately uses the designation “Deity” while researching the upper register's differing techniques and condition. A specific jewel, fold or face should not be confidently assigned to one brother simply because it looks exceptionally accomplished. Treatment can recover material distinctions without instantly converting each one into an individual painter's name.^[16]

Nor should neighbouring inscriptions be moved into this background. Hélène Verougstraete and Wim Verbaal's cathedral-hosted study proposes a memorial reading of damaged lettering behind Mary and John the Baptist. Those are the flanking cloths, not the pelican design behind the central figure. Whatever the merits of that proposal, its location matters. The distinction keeps a reader from merging every unusual inscription in the upper row into one message supposedly attached to the Deity.^[17]

As checked on 29 October 2026, the additional-funding announcement scheduled the end of treatment for December 2026, with the restored ensemble expected back in public view in spring 2027. These remain announced milestones. The clearest account of the panel combines what can already be examined—gesture, lettering, ornament, relief and position—with the questions still being tested about condition, authorship and divine identity.^[18]

Related reading

Adoration of the Mystic Lamb — Jan and Hubert van Eyck

Ghent Altarpiece

The Arnolfini Portrait

References

1. Flemish Art Collection, archived Dutch catalogue, “Aanbidding van het Lam Gods (God)”: object data and three interpretations of the central figure. View Source
2. Saint Bavo's Cathedral, Dutch panel guide: central throne text, Father/Son identification and commissioned ensemble. View Source
3. Susan Jones, “The Ghent Altarpiece,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002: Deësis and Christ as High Priest. View Source
4. Maximiliaan Martens, “What is depicted in the Ghent Altarpiece?”, Visit Gent, 15 August 2025: horizontal and vertical readings and divine-mystery proposal. View Source
5. Lucas de Heere, Den hof en boomgaerd der poësien, 1565, ode XI, page 29, in W. Waterschoot's 1969 edition: early naming of the central group. View Source
6. W. H. James Weale, The Van Eycks and Their Art, 1912, pages 40–41: throne/base inscriptions, tiara and floor crown. View Source
7. Jacques Paviot, with Dina Goren, “Les inscriptions grecques et hébraïques de Jan van Eyck,” 2006, especially pages 64 and 68–69: pearl lettering, royal titles and Hebrew-derived divine names. View Source
8. Visit Gent, “The symbolism behind the Ghent Altarpiece”: pelican pattern and IHESVS XPS banderole. View Source
9. Sophie Kirkpatrick and colleagues, “Characterisation of the Tin Relief Decorations on the Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece,” ChemCH 2024 proceedings, page 88: construction and analytical aims. View Source
10. Sophie Kirkpatrick and colleagues, “Multimodal characterization of the tin relief decorations on the Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece and their degradation process,” preprint posted May 2026: dimensions, material analyses and unresolved mechanisms. View Source
11. Kathleen Froyen, “Life as it is: the conservation of The Ghent Altarpiece,” Visit Gent, 16 July 2025: brocade treatment decisions. View Source
12. KIK-IRPA, press release, 10 December 2024, pages 1–2 and 6, photographs 8–9: central-cloak condition and treatment comparison. View Source
13. KIK-IRPA, press kit, 26 March 2024, especially annex 5 and current-results section: Paris history, shortening and floor research. View Source
14. M Leuven, French account of the reunited Coxcie copy, 1 October 2013: commission, adaptation and the copied Deity's later collection history. View Source
15. Musée Granet, Pouvoir et art, French thematic dossier, pages 13–14: Rosenblum's proposed connection with Ingres's imperial portrait. View Source
16. KIK-IRPA, current upper-register conservation and research project: terminology, varied materials and continuing attribution research. View Source
17. Hélène Verougstraete and Wim Verbaal, The Ghent Altarpiece and the Inscription on the Cloths of Honour behind Mary and John the Baptist, 2022: a proposal concerning the neighbouring backgrounds. View Source
18. KIK-IRPA, “Additional funding for the third phase of the conservation of the Ghent Altarpiece”: revised timetable. View Source