MEDIEVAL IMAGES OF SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX - PA087.jpg


Category	Painting
Origin: artist/workshop	Jean Bellegambe (active 1504-34)
Date	16C/1
Reference No	Inv. 32.100.102
Size	central panel 101.6x61, wings 95.9x25.4
Provenance	Clairvaux
Present Location	New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Michael Friedsam Collection
Bibliography	Ainsworth & Christiansen 1999, 332-4; Sterling 1955, 18-20; Chauvin 2001, 103
	Genaille 1952, 99-108; Heller 1976, 175; Friedlaender 1967-76, 12:101; Pearson 2001, 1358-62
Illustration From	photo - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Other illustrations	Ainsworth & Christiansen 1999, 333; Genaille 1952, ills 1 & 2
	Pearson 2001, ill i & 2 (detail); Friedlaender 1967-76, 12:ill 119
Country	France

Description:
Triptych painted by Jean Bellegambe c 1509 and known as the Retable of le Cellier because it was formerly in the chapel of the Clairvaux grange Le Cellier near Clairvaux. It was commissioned for Clairvaux by Abbess Jeanne de Boubais of Flines (1507-33), the buildings of which may be seen on the left wing in the background as well as the four spires of Anchin and towers of Douai. It was one of several paintings by Bellegambe commissioned by Abbess de Boubais, one of which is a small diptych which carries her portrait on the outside (see PA084). This triptych has her coat of arms on the right wing and Bernard's on the left. The centre and wings have the enthroned Virgin and Child venerated by a number of religious and lay people. Bernard is depicted on the left wing with two kneeling Cistercian monks, while the bishop carrying the cross of a metropolitan on the right is St Malachy, friend of Bernard and archbishop of Armagh, shown with two more Cistercian monks. The lay donors in the centre may be the founders of Flines, Margaret of Flanders (1202-80) and her son Guy de Dampierre (1225-1305) who were buried at Flines. Behind them the nun in a black habit may be seen as Jeanne of Flines and the monk on the opposite side as Guillaume de Bruxelles, her chaplain who was responsible for the reform of Flines, and the retable is seen as celebrating and symbolizing the reform and return to stricter interpretation of the Rule. Ingeniously the figures may also be viewed in quite a different way: the lay donors as Bernard's parents, the five monks as his brothers, and the nun as his sister, Humbeline, who became a Benedictine nun at Jully. The iconography may be likened to that of a fifteenth-century manuscript of the Golden legend in Paris (see MA088), and even more closely to a woodcut from 1508 in which the Virgin is also flanked by Bernard and Malachy, all three standing on pillars and accompanied by members of Bernard's family (see EN31). This, in turn, was the model for an almost identical painting from the German nuns' abbey of Lichtenthal dated 1534 in which the figures are identified in banderoles. The outside of the wings of the triptych has a Lactation scene (see PA088).

Description:

Triptych painted by Jean Bellegambe c 1509 and known as the Retable of le Cellier because it was formerly in the chapel of the Clairvaux grange Le Cellier near Clairvaux. It was commissioned for Clairvaux by Abbess Jeanne de Boubais of Flines (1507-33), the buildings of which may be seen on the left wing in the background as well as the four spires of Anchin and towers of Douai. It was one of several paintings by Bellegambe commissioned by Abbess de Boubais, one of which is a small diptych which carries her portrait on the outside (see PA084). This triptych has her coat of arms on the right wing and Bernard's on the left. The centre and wings have the enthroned Virgin and Child venerated by a number of religious and lay people. Bernard is depicted on the left wing with two kneeling Cistercian monks, while the bishop carrying the cross of a metropolitan on the right is St Malachy, friend of Bernard and archbishop of Armagh, shown with two more Cistercian monks. The lay donors in the centre may be the founders of Flines, Margaret of Flanders (1202-80) and her son Guy de Dampierre (1225-1305) who were buried at Flines. Behind them the nun in a black habit may be seen as Jeanne of Flines and the monk on the opposite side as Guillaume de Bruxelles, her chaplain who was responsible for the reform of Flines, and the retable is seen as celebrating and symbolizing the reform and return to stricter interpretation of the Rule. Ingeniously the figures may also be viewed in quite a different way: the lay donors as Bernard's parents, the five monks as his brothers, and the nun as his sister, Humbeline, who became a Benedictine nun at Jully. The iconography may be likened to that of a fifteenth-century manuscript of the Golden legend in Paris (see MA088), and even more closely to a woodcut from 1508 in which the Virgin is also flanked by Bernard and Malachy, all three standing on pillars and accompanied by members of Bernard's family (see EN31). This, in turn, was the model for an almost identical painting from the German nuns' abbey of Lichtenthal dated 1534 in which the figures are identified in banderoles. The outside of the wings of the triptych has a Lactation scene (see PA088).