The Ghent Altarpiece or the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, completed in 1432, is a very large and complex polyptych panel painting in the Joost Vijd chapel at Saint Bavo Cathedral, Ghent, Belgium. It was commissioned by the wealthy merchant Joost Vijd. Hubert Van Eyck started and his brother, the famous "Flemish Primitive" Jan Van Eyck, finished the work.
The Mystic Lamb consists of 24 scenes, making up two views (open and closed) which are changed by moving the hinged outer wings. The upper register of the opened view shows Christ "the King" between the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. The insides of the wings represent angels, who are singing and making music. On the outsides are Adam and Eve. The lower register shows the adoration of the Lamb of God, with several groups in attendance and streaming in to worship.
Art historians consider the Mystic Lamb as one of the most influential oil paintings in Christendom. The work highlights what made Jan Van Eyck famous: the beautiful light, the intricate details and composition.
The lower left panel known as The Just Judges was stolen on April 11, 1934. The original panel has never been found and has been replaced by a copy. This is one of the many mysteries surrounding the Mystic Lamb and Belgium's greatest unsolved mystery, with countless amateur and professional sleuths still tracking clues. In a BBC interview with crime novelist Minette Walters, former police chef Karel Mortier referred to the theft as "the art crime of the century".
Mortier beliefs the panel was hidden somewhere behind the old wood paneling in the vast Saint Bavo cathedral. X-ray investigations of part of the paneling was fruitless and lack of funds have barred the inquiry in the cathedral to continue. Chris Noppe, another policeman, is convinced that the stolen panel is hidden in the coffin of King Albert I, who died in a climbing accident a few months before the theft (some say he was murdered). Albert's body now lies in the crypt of the Belgian royal family, near Brussels. Maria De Roo is defending a conspiracy theory, claiming the Belgian authorities retrieved the panel a long time ago. And then there is the Nazi Plot Hypothesis, claiming that the thief and his two accomplices worked for a nazi agent and were killed when they hid the stolen panel for him.
Sensational as it sounds, it is one of the more plausible theories put forth to explain the theft. It's a theory involving the Knights Templar and the Quest for the Holy Grail. Indeed, the Mystic Lamb should be read as a code and maybe some of the panels are incorporating documents or a map, leading to the Holy Blood that was brought by the Templars to that other important Flemish city: Bruges, the Venice of the Nord. And since Baigent, Leigh & Lincoln or Dan Brown the whole world knows that the Holy Blood should be regarded as the bloodline of Jesus Christ, who didn't die at Golgotha...
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