MEDIEVAL IMAGES OF SAINT BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX - SC51.jpg

Category Sculpture
Origin: artist/workshop North German workshop
Date 15C/4
Reference No
Size
Provenance Esrum Cistercian Abbey, church
Present Location Copenhagen, National Museum
Bibliography EM 2:7 (Griesser 1961, 102-3);Posset 2003,330

Plathe 1997, 150-66
Illustration From photo - Museum
Other illustrations Plathe 1997, 156;Posset 2003,331

Country Germany
Description:
The carved altarpiece, originally a pentatych, was commissioned for the high altar at Esrum by the abbot, Peder Andersen, in 1496. He is represented kneeling at the foot of the central Crucifixion scene, and remembered by the inscription in gold letters against a red background running along the base of the altarpiece: 'Memoria reverendi in Chri(s)to patris Petri abbatis in esrum an(n)o d(omi)ni mccccxcvi' (In memory of the reverend father in Christ Abbot Peter in Esrum the year 1496). After the Reformation the altarpiece was moved to the church of St Olav in Elsinore and Abbot Peter was transformed into the figure of a Protestant pastor, given a beard and the characteristic ruff collar and a chasuble over the monastic cowl. The central scene is flanked by four panels with carvings of saints, two on each side. The top left has an Amplexus scene with Bernard kneeling on the right before Christ on the left whose arms he has detached from the T-cross in an embrace of Bernard. The difference in scale with a much larger Bernard is typical. The scene takes place out of doors with a church in the background. The inscription below in gold letters on a red ground reads: 'Sant bernhardus ora pro n(obis)' (St Bernard, pray for us). The figures from the inner wings have been preserved, including one of Bernard (see SC52). Bernard has 'tuft'.