MEDIEVAL IMAGES OF SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX - PA075.jpg


Category	Painting
Origin: artist/workshop	Flemish School
Date	15C/4
Reference No
Size	39x26
Provenance	Cistercian abbey?
Present Location	Liege, Musee d'Art Religieux et d'Art Mosan
Bibliography	Paris 1990, 277; Huy 1990, 65
	Dijon 1953, 56
Illustration From	Paris 1990, 156
Other illustrations	Huy 1990, 20; Dupeux 1991, ill 5
	Leclercq 1966, 131; Mund, Stroo & Goetghebeur 2003, 360
Country	Belgium

Description:
Small panel painted in oil on wood c 1480 with half-figures of Mary and naked Child with Bernard. Mary sits under a richly-embroidered Venetian velvet canopy holding the Child in her left arm while pressing ber bared breast with her right hand to the facing figure of Bernard kneeling with a crozier with attached sudarium in his right hand and a partially open book in his left. Unusually he is depicted in a white tunic and black scapular and not in a cowl. His distinctive features suggest that we have here one of a number of abbot portraits, and Cistercian provenance is indicated by the Gothic abbey church and monastic buildings set in an undulating valley landscape in the background with the tiny figures of two Cistercian monks in white tunics and black scapulars on the path leading to the monastery gate. A faint inscription of 'Monstra te esse matrem', the usual Lactation inscription, appears between the figures.

Description:

Small panel painted in oil on wood c 1480 with half-figures of Mary and naked Child with Bernard. Mary sits under a richly-embroidered Venetian velvet canopy holding the Child in her left arm while pressing ber bared breast with her right hand to the facing figure of Bernard kneeling with a crozier with attached sudarium in his right hand and a partially open book in his left. Unusually he is depicted in a white tunic and black scapular and not in a cowl. His distinctive features suggest that we have here one of a number of abbot portraits, and Cistercian provenance is indicated by the Gothic abbey church and monastic buildings set in an undulating valley landscape in the background with the tiny figures of two Cistercian monks in white tunics and black scapulars on the path leading to the monastery gate. A faint inscription of 'Monstra te esse matrem', the usual Lactation inscription, appears between the figures.