Clothing the Naked

The Master of the View of Saint Gudula is an anonymous Brussels painter of the late fifteenth century named for a background view of the collegiate church of Saint Gudula identifiable in several of his works. Clothing the Naked belongs to the series of the Seven Acts of Mercy — feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick and imprisoned, burying the dead — which were among the most important subjects for charitable confraternities and hospitals in the Low Countries. The series derived from Matthew 25:31–46 and was the standard programme for confraternity chapels.

The Master of Saint Gudula works in a conservative Flemish style influenced by Rogier van der Weyden and Dirk Bouts, with the city street and donor architecture rendered in careful perspective. The figures receiving clothing are individualised with the compassionate specificity characteristic of confraternity painting designed to cultivate empathy.