MEDIEVAL IMAGES OF SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX - PA036.jpg

Category Painting
Origin: artist/workshop unknown
Date 14C/2
Reference No
Size 45.3x33.3
Provenance Loegum Cistercian Church - retable?
Present Location Loegum Cistercian Church
Bibliography Kofod-Hansen & Scharff 1985

Ballhorn 1984, 60-85; Mills 1991, 56
Illustration From Kofod-Hansen & Scharff 1985, ill 11
Other illustrations Ballhorn 1984, ill 4

Country Denmark
Description:
One of the sixteen portraits of saints on the inner side of the so-called relics cupboard from c 1325 from the Danish Cistercian Church of Loegum (Locus Dei). They correspond to the sixteen compartments of the cupboard, four across and four down, overall size 181x133, the width with the doors (wings) open being 266 The saints, from left to right are: top row, apostles, two on each side (John, Peter, Paul, and James the Greater), second row, martyrs (George, Clement, Dionysius, and Maurice), third row, confessors (Bernard, Ambrose. Augustine, Benedict), and bottom row, virgins (Barbara, Catherine of Alexandria, Margaret, and Ursula). The name of each is incribed above against a red and a green background in alternate rows, and they all carry their traditional attributes. The halos are red and green alternatively with gold outline. They are each painted against a deep green background and placed within a golden trifoliate arcade supported by golden columns. Above Bernard is the inscription BERNARDUS in gold letters on a red background. He is shown in a dark grey cowl with gold edges, has a crozier in his left hand and his right hand is raised in blessing. As the width of the magnificent altar frontal from the Loegum High Altar (now in the National Museum, Copenhagen) is exactly the same as the relics cupboard fully open, it is possible that the latter formed the retable of the High Altar. A number of relics cupboards are found in Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg, including one from the Cistercian Doberan, and a variant of a relics retable dated c 1300 is also found at the Cistercian abbey of Marienstatt (illustrated in Ballhorn 1984, ill 11).