MEDIEVAL IMAGES OF SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX - PA106.jpg

Category Painting
Origin: artist/workshop Master of 1499
Date 16C/1
Reference No 404758 (detail)
Size 107.1x67 (centre panel), 106.6x28.3 (left wing)
Provenance
Present Location Hampton Court Palace, Royal Collection
Bibliography Campbell 1985, 71-4

Illustration From photo -The Royal Collection, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Other illustrations Campbell 1985, ill 49 (whole triptych)

Country Belgium
Description:
Triptych of the Coronation of the Virgin painted by the Master of 1499, so named after the Diptych of Abbot Christiaan de Hondt of the Cistercian abbey of Les Dunes dated 1499. A host of red seraphim frames the top half of the central panel. God the Father, wearing a tiara, and Christ are seated on a golden throne with the dove, representing the Holy Ghost, hovering between them. They support an open crown, decorated with stars, fleurs-de-lys and roses above the head of the Virgin who kneels before them on a golden platform. Below are ten saints, Cosmas (or Damien), Sebastian, Quirinus, Adrian, George, Andrew, Giles, Paul the Hermit, St Anthony Abbot, and Philip. Each wing has a host of red seraphim and below twenty-three saints. The saints on the left wing are Luke at the rear, then James the Great, beside him Clare, then Hippolytus, then Angelo, a Carmelite with a dagger embedded in his head, Paul with the sword, Lawrence with the grill embroidered on his dalmatic, then Bernard in white and carrying a crozier which carries a representation of a Lactation scene, followed by Guy of Anderlecht, Catherine of Siena, Dorothy, Mary of Egypt, Margaret, Apollonia, Mary Magdalen, Martha, Philip, and Louis. Another 23 saints are depicted on the right wing. The Lactation scene, the commonest of all Bernard scene-attributes, positively identifies him in this crowd of saints. In 1550 the abbot of Bebenhausen had a simlar crozier but with an Amplexus image (see Paffrath 1990, 133). Bernard is youthful looking, has reddish hair, his head is at an angle as in the 'Vera Effigies' images, and he has a 'tuft'.