Rhetoric
Artist: Justus of Ghent (Belgian, 1430 - 1480)
Original Dimensions: 61 7/8" x 41 3/8"
Location: National Gallery of Art, London
About Artwork: (Probably 1470s) "A lady seated in an alcove points out a passage in a book to a young man kneeling before her. This is Rhetoric, or argument, an allegorical figure who represented one of the seven liberal arts which made up the medieval curriculum. She is one of a series of paintings made in the late 1470s by Justus of Ghent for Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino. Another panel from the series, Music, is also in the National Gallery’s collection. Both Rhetoric and Music were painted on very large panels, though not the same one, which were cut into segments at an unknown date. The figure of Rhetoric seems to have originally appeared between images of Grammar and Dialectic (once in Berlin, but destroyed in 1945)." - (National Gallery of Art, London)

Panel content
Panel content