Vol. 1 No. 2 (2023)
Articles

The Scales of Balance: Saint or Goldsmith? Petrus Christus A Goldsmith in his Shop

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Eszter Kolma
Pázmány Péter Catholic University Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Folia Humanistica et Socialia 1(2) 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.69705/FHS.2023.1.2.13

Published 31-12-2023 — Updated on 11-06-2024

Copyright (c) 2023 Kolma Eszter

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

One of the few signed and dated works by Petrus Christus is the Goldsmith in his Shop, created in 1449. Initially referred to as Saint Eloy, the goldsmith depicted had a halo removed from his head in 1993, sparking various hypotheses about his identity. Some propose that the artwork served as an advertisement for Bruges’s goldsmith’s guild (Wolff, 1998, 71), while others argue that it was commissioned for an individual craftsman, the central figure in the scene (Velden, 1998, 253). According to Schabacker (1972, 104) and Ainsworth (1998, 96), the Goldsmith in his Shop is a vocational portrait, as Rogier van der Weyden’s Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin. In my paper I delve into the identity of the goldsmith in the painting, questioning whether it is Saint Eloy or a real goldsmith from 15th century Bruges. Additionally, I sought to determine the painting’s place of origin and its original purpose.

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