Tomb of Philip the Bold

The Tomb of Philip the Bold is a funerary monument commissioned in 1378 by the Duke of Burgundy Philip the Bold (d. 1404) for his burial at the Chartreuse de Champmol, the Carthusian monastery he built on the outskirts of Dijon, in today's France. The construction was overseen by Jean de Marville, who designed the tomb and oversaw the building of the charterhouse. Marville worked on the tomb from 1384, but progressed slowly until his death in 1389. That year Claus Sluter took over design of Champmol, including the tomb. Philip died in 1404 with his funerary monument still incomplete. After Sluter's death c. 1405/06, his nephew Claus de Werve was hired to complete the project, which he finished in 1410.

The monument shows the duke recumbent on a black marble slab with his eyes open, his hands clasped, and his helmet held by two angels as a lion rests at his feet.^[4] Below him, positioned in alternating double archways and triangular niches, pleurants (mourning figures) walk as if part of a funeral procession. The figures were designed by Sluter and became widely influential in the following decades.^[5] Philip's son, John the Fearless (d. 1419) commissioned a similar tomb and set of figures for both himself and his wife, Margaret of Bavaria.

The monuments were not completed and installed until 1470, however pleurants designed for them surpassed those in Philip's tomb and are arguably better known today. Jean, Duke of Berry (d. 1416) commissioned a similar work for his burial,^[6] and later again Sluter's work on Philip's tomb inspired the well known Mourners of Dijon, crafted a generation later.

Today both Philip and John's tombs are housed in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon.