MEDIEVAL IMAGES OF SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX - MA115.jpg

Category Manuscript
Origin: artist/workshop Antwerp
Date 16C/1
Reference No MS 9, f 1v
Size
Provenance Cistercian Abbey of St Bernard-op-'t-Scheldt (Saint-Bernard-sur-l'Escaut)
Present Location Bornem, St Bernardusabdij
Bibliography Smeyers & Van der Stock 1996, 150-1

Illustration From Sabbe, Lamberigts & Gistelinck, ill 1
Other illustrations Smeyers & Van der Stock 1996, 151

Country Belgium
Description:
One of two images of Bernard (see also MA116) in a devotional work 'Manuale pietatis' dated c 1524 and probably from Antwerp. It is similar in style to that of a number of Antwerp painters, notably Joos van Cleve. Bernard kneels before the Virgin, hands clasped and his crozier leaning against his right shoulder. In a full-page miniature the Virgin in a blue dress with white veil sits holding a naked Child on her knees with her left hand while pressing her bared breast with her right hand. The scene is out of doors with a building behind the figures which has a large arch through which further buildings appear in a mountainous background. The golden border is decorated with birds, fruit, and flowers in the style of the period, and in the lower border the small figure of a kneeling abbot (Marcus Cruyt) in a grey cowl and with a crozier and a mitre on the ground before him is depicted together with his coat of arms and the scroll with the words 'Spes mea in Domino' (My hope is in the Lord), the same as appear in the Arenberg Missal. He may also have been the model for the Bernard depicted here and in the Lactation image in the Missal (see MA140). The composition and most of the details are taken from the engraving by Dirk Vellert (see EN47). On the opposite folio is a prayer to Bernard. See also MA218.