Bellechose
Henri
( fl 1415; d before 28 Jan 1445).
South Netherlandish painter. He was one of the artists who came from
the South Netherlands to work for the French royal family. On 23 May
1415 he succeeded Jean Malouel as court painter and Valet de Chambre
to John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, in Dijon, and he may already
have been connected with Malouel’s workshop. On 5 November 1415
Bellechose was paid for painting four small wooden pillars with
angels, which were placed around the high altar of Notre-Dame,
Dijon. On 19 May 1416 the duke authorized the purchase of materials
for Bellechose to complete two panels, one of the Martyrdom of St
Denis and another showing the Death of the Virgin, for the
Charterhouse of Champmol. Bellechose also carried out decorative
work, including painting banners for the Duke’s castle of Talant
near Dijon in 1416 and coats of arms for the funeral of John the
Fearless in 1419. On 5 April 1420 Bellechose was appointed court
painter to Philip the Good, successor to John the Fearless. His
first known commissions were again of a decorative nature, including
work for the funerals of Margaret of Bavaria, wife of John the
Fearless, in 1423 and of Catherine of Burgundy, daughter of an
earlier Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Bold, in 1425 and for the
marriage of Philip the Good’s sister Agnes of Burgundy in 1424.
During these years he had eight assistants and two apprentices;
travelling artists, including some from German territory, also
worked in his shop on a temporary basis. Around this time he married
Alixant Lebon, daughter of a Dijon notary. On 21 November 1425
Philip the Good ordered an altarpiece of the Virgin venerated by
John the Fearless and Philip the Good, accompanied by SS John the
Evangelist and Claude, for the chapel of the castle at Saulx-le-Duc
in Burgundy. Bellechose painted three statues for the new entrance
gate to the palace in Dijon in 1426. In August 1429 he received an
important commission for St Michel, Dijon, to make an altarpiece
with Christ and the Twelve Apostles and an antependium showing the
Annunciation. Exactly a year later his name appears for the last
time in the ducal accounts. The salary of the artist had decreased
by two thirds since 1426 and from 1429 he was not paid at all. The
fact that Philip the Good moved the centre of his administration to
the Netherlands and enlisted the services of Jan van Eyck
considerably diminished the prestige of Dijon and the artists who
worked there. Bellechose was still alive in 1440, though absent from
Dijon.
