Two painters, two centuries, one mural: Technical research on the layered crucifixion mural in the Utrecht burial chapel of Guy of Avesnes

In the Cathedral of Utrecht, a well-preserved mural still decorates the burial chapel of Guy of Avesnes, Bishop of Utrecht between 1301 and 1317. It was discovered in 1919, when a brick wall was removed from what turned out to be a painted niche. The mural, which depicts a Calvary, covers the rear wall of this niche, which is located in the chapel’s eastside wall. Its figures are of an outstanding quality; other murals like this have not survived in the Northern Netherlands. What is even more exceptional is the fact that on the back wall of the niche not one but two paintings can be found, the one currently visible covering an older mural. This older mural was probably placed there as part of the furnishings when the chapel became a burial chapel for the aforementioned bishop in around 1320. This mural was painted over in around 1410. The unique situation of a well-preserved fifteenth-century mural covering a fourteenth-century one calls for technical research that renders both murals visible and determines the working methods of the two painters who worked on the same wall almost a century apart.