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(b. ca. 1415, Haarlem, d. 1475, Leuven)

The Ordeal by Fire c. 1460 Oil on wood, 324 x 182 cm Mus?es Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

The picture shows the right wing of the diptych The Justice of Emperor III.

The Emperor had married the daughter of the King of Aragon. His wife subsequently fell in love with a count of the imperial court. When the latter refused to respond to her advances, she publicly accused him of having made an attempt upon her honour. The Emperor, in a fit of anger, had the count beheaded on the spot. The count's wife asked to prove the truth of her husband's innocence by the ordeal of fire. She won her case, surviving the test unharmed. The Empress was found guilty of false accusation, and condemned to be burned alive.

In the second panel, the Emperor is giving an audience to the widow. He sits on a throne beneath a dais, while she kneels before him to ask for reparation. In one hand she holds the livid head of her dead husband, and in the other a bar of red hot iron. The bar does not burn her, thus proving the innocence of her dead husband. Through an open doorway, we can see a hill in the background. There on a burning pyre, the Empress is punished according to her deserts.

The original project, a cycle of four panels, remained uncompleted at Dirk Bouts' death in 1475. One of the four panels, the Ordeal by Fire, had been fully completed, another was judged to be almost so (by nae volmaect). Given that the entire story was depicted on two panels, at least one more theme must have been planned. The complete cycle is reminiscent of the work that Rogier van der Weyden undertook in c. 1440 for the Council Chamber of the Brussels City Hall, consisting of four panels with the exemplary Justice of Trajan and Herkinbald.

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Author: BOUTS, Dieric the Elder Title: The Ordeal by Fire Time-line: 1451-1500 School: Netherlandish Form: painting