the Tulse Luper Archetypes

The left panel of the diptych de Melun depicted Etienne Chavalier Presented by St. Stephen. It founds its way to the Gemaldegalerie, Berlin in Germany.

Estienne Chevalier, who came from Melun, was French Ambassador to England in 1445 and six years later became Treasurer to Charles VII of France. He presented the diptych to his native town; on the left panel he had himself painted next to his patron saint, Stephen.

According to a description of the paintings by Denis Godefroy in 1661, the original frames were covered in blue velvet. Round each picture were strands of gold and silver thread, in which the donor's initials were woven in pearls. There were also gilded medallions on which stories of the saints were represented.

Tradition has it - and there is considerable supporting evidence - that the Madonna's features are those of Agnes Sorel, the beautiful and influential mistress of Charles VII.

Known portraits of her certainly do not conflict with this hypothesis. Her relationship with Estienne Chevalier was not entirely political, and an eighteenth-century inscription on the back of the Antwerp panel tells us that the diptych of Melun was endowed by Estienne following a vow he made on her death in 1450. The diptych stayed in the chancel of the Church of Notre-Dame at Melun, south of Paris, from 1461 until about 1775, when the two halves became separated. The two parts, having been separated, were never reunited except for a short time at Paris during the Exposition of the French "Primitives" in 1904.