The Well of Moses is a monumental sculpture recognised as the masterpiece of the Dutch artist Claus Sluter

Claus Sluter

Claus Sluter was a sculptor of Dutch origin. He was the most important northern European sculptor of his age and is considered a pioneer of the "northern realism" of the Early Netherlandish painting that came into full flower with the work of Jan van Eyck and others in the next generation.Sluter...

 (1340-1405/6). It was executed by Sluter and his workshop in 1395–1403 for the Carthusian monastery of Chartreuse de Champmol built as a burial site by the Burgundian

Duchy of Burgundy

The Duchy of Burgundy , was heir to an ancient and prestigious reputation and a large division of the lands of the Second Kingdom of Burgundy and in its own right was one of the geographically larger ducal territories in the emergence of Early Modern Europe from Medieval Europe.Even in that...

 Duke Philip the Bold

Philip the Bold

Philip the Bold , also Philip II, Duke of Burgundy , was the fourth and youngest son of King John II of France and his wife, Bonne of Luxembourg. By his marriage to Margaret III, Countess of Flanders, he also became Count Philip II of Flanders, Count Philip IV of Artois and Count-Palatine Philip IV...

 just outside the Burgundian capital of Dijon

Dijon

Dijon is a city in eastern France, the capital of the Côte-d'Or département and of the Burgundy region.Dijon is the historical capital of the region of Burgundy. Population : 151,576 within the city limits; 250,516 for the greater Dijon area....

, now in France.

The work was executed for Philip’s son, John the Fearless (1371–1419), in a style combining the elegance of International Gothic

International Gothic

International Gothic is a phase of Gothic art which developed in Burgundy, Bohemia, France and northern Italy in the late 14th century and early 15th century...

 with a northern realism, but with a monumental quality unusual in either. It was carved from stone quarried in Asnières, France and consisted of a large crucifixion

Crucifixion

Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...

 scene or "Calvary", with a tall slender cross surmounting a hexagonal base which was surrounded by the figures of the six prophets who had foreseen the death of Christ on the Cross (Moses, David, Jeremiah, Zachariah, Daniel and Isaiah). Standing on slender colonnettes on the corners between these prophets are six weeping angels. All the figures, including the lost Calvary group, were richly painted and gilded by Jean Malouel

Jean Malouel

Jean Malouel, or Jan Maelwael in his native Dutch, was a Netherlandish artist, sometimes classified as French, who was the court painter of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and his successor John the Fearless, working in the International Gothic style.-Documented life:He was presumably born in...

, and some of this paint remains. Thanks to the survival of the ducal accounts, the commission and ongoing work is unusually well documented.
It was traditionally assumed that the Calvary scene would have included the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalen, and St. John, though recent research (based on a close reading of the archives and an examination of the fixing-points on top of the base) suggests that there was only one figure, the Magdalen, embracing the foot of the Cross.

Situated in the central courtyard of what was then the main cloister, the building enclosing the well was added in the 17th century, when the upper parts of the work were already suffering from weather damage. The work was further damaged in 1791, during the French Revolution. Only fragments of the Crucifixion survive, including the head and torso of Christ; they are now housed in the Musée Archéologique in Dijon. The hexagonal base with its sculptures remains in what is now the Hospital de la Chartreuse, and can be seen by tourists.