Josephus Maria Van der Veken was a Belgian art restorer, copyist, and art forger who mastered the art of reproducing the works of early Netherlandish painters.
Copy of The Just Judges by Jef Van der Veken
The Renders Madonna after its 'restoration' by Jef Van der Veken
Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele
The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele is a large oil-on-oak panel painting completed around 1434–1436 by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It shows the painting's donor, Joris van der Paele, within an apparition of saints. The Virgin Mary is enthroned at the centre of the semicircular space, which most likely represents a church interior, with the Christ Child on her lap. St. Donatian stands to her right, Saint George—the donor's name saint—to her left. The panel was commissioned by van der Paele as an altarpiece. He was then a wealthy clergyman from Bruges, but elderly and gravely ill, and intended the work as his memorial.
The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele, 1434–1436. Oil on wood, 141 x 176.5 cm (including frame), 122 x 157 cm (excluding frame). Groeningemuseum, Bruges.
Canon van der Paele
Detail of Van der Paele's prayer book and spectacles
Madonna of Chancellor Rolin, around 1435, Musée du Louvre. Like van der Paele's panel, this work was created as an eventual memorial for the donor's burial church, in this case for Nicolas Rolin's family chapel in Notre Dame-du-Chastel in Autun.
