Tomb of Joan of Brabant



The tomb of Joan of Brabant was built between 1457 and 1458 by the bronze caster Jacob de Gerines after wooden models by the sculptor Jean Delemer, and placed in the church of the Carmelite monastery in Brussels. Joan of Brabant was a Duchess of Brabant and died in 1406.

The tomb was commissioned in the 1450s by her great-great-nephew Philip the Good. It underwent restoration in 1607, but was destroyed along with the monastery, by the French Royal Army in August 1695 during the bombardment of Brussels. Today its form and style is known through a number of drawings and written descriptions.

Death of Joan of Brabant
Joan of Brabant was born in 1322 as the daughter of John III, Duke of Brabant and Marie d'Évreux. She was a Duchess of Brabant from 1355 until her death in 1406 at the age of 84. Her will requested that she be buried alongside her mother and that her mother's burial place was enlarged.

Her tomb was commissioned in the 1450s by her descendant Philip the Good for the church in the Carmelite monastery in Brussels. It was damaged during the Calvinist iconoclasm in the years 1578 to 1585, but was restored in 1607.

Description
The tomb is probably the earliest of the Burgundian-style tombs, whose characteristics include the deceased having naturalised faces, open eyes and angels above their heads. Its design and build is attributed to the casters and sculptors Jacob van Gerines and Jean de le Mer, and its polychrome to the painter Rogier van der Weyden.

Today it is known through a number of drawings and written descriptions, the most detailed being from Charles de Rietwyck's 1600 'Sigillographica Belgica' and in 1602 in Antoine de Succa's nl "Memoriaux". Succa also made notes, describing elements such as her blond hair and the coat of arms on her cloak. De Rietwyck's notes detail that at the time, the tomb was positioned in the middle of the church's choir, that its epitaph was engraved on copper, and that it was 4 feet high, 10 feet long and 8 feet wide.

Examining the various descriptions and drawings, the art historian Lorne Campbell believes the tomb was similar that of Louis II, Count of Flanders (d. 1384).

Influence
The rows of mourners positioed below the slab were reproduces in a number of later Burgundain funerary monuments, most notably on the tomb of Isabella of Bourbon, constructed between 1475 and 1476  with the mourners being directly copied from Joan's monument.