MEDIEVAL IMAGES OF SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX - GL69.jpg

Category Glass
Origin: artist/workshop Herman Pentelynk
Date 16C/1
Reference No Inv 41.170.107a
Size 167.5x56
Provenance Cologne, Church of Maccabees (?)
Present Location New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of George D Pratt
Bibliography Studies in the History of Art 1985, 15:138

Hayward 1971/2, 98
Illustration From photo - The Metroplolitan Museum of Art
Other illustrations Studies in the History of Art 1985, 15:138

Country Germany
Description:
One of four compositions with saints and donors, perhaps one of the windows painted by Herman Pentelynk, the city glass painter, and designed by Lambert von Luytge which the City of Cologne gave to the newly-built Church of the Maccabees in 1508. The others are of a knight, a bishop, and a lady respectively being presented by a saint, while this has the figure of Bernard, nimbed, with crozier under his right arm containing a seated, mitred abbot at the top and with his hands clasped in prayer. Behind him are the figures of his mother with her right hand on his shoulder and his father, both unusually depicted nimbed and identified by the inscriptions on the halos 'Sca Aleidis mater S'Bernard' and 'S' Tesselin'. The inscription on Bernard's halo 'Monstra te esse matrem' tells us that this is part of a larger Lactation picture with Bernard kneeling in front of the Virgin who would have been on the right. The recognition of Bernard's parents as saints suggests a strong Cistercian connection and points to Cistercian ownership, perhaps the nuns' abbey of St Apern? There is a dog at Bernard's feet (not shown in this picture).