Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Tuesday 20 October 2015

St Luke painting a portrait of the Virgin


John Dillon has followed up his selection of images of St Luke on the Medieval Religion discussion group with another series of depictions of the Evangelist painting Our Lady. They all appear as a late- medieval theme,and may reflect a changing or developing awareness of the place of the painter in society. Not only are they pleasing in themselves but they are also an insight into how artists worked - or saw themselves as working - in the period.

a) as depicted in an early fifteenth-century Russian icon in the Ikonen-Museum Recklinghausen:



b) as depicted in the early fifteenth-century Châteauroux Breviary (c. 1414; Châteauroux, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2, fol. 373v):



c) as depicted by Michelino Molinari da Besozzo in an earlier fifteenth-century prayer book from Milan (c. 1420; New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum; Morgan MS M.944, fol. 75v):
http://www.themorgan.org/collection/medieval-and-renaissance/manuscript/145545

d) as depicted in one of the earlier fifteenth-century paintings added to the Malet-Lannoy Hours probably at the time of an early owner's wedding (1430s; Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery and Museum, Ms. W.281, fol. 17r):
http://tinyurl.com/oyxxxd3

e) as depicted by Rogier van der Weyden in an earlier fifteenth-century panel painting (c. 1435-1470) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:



Other versions of this painting exist. Three are shown here:
http://tinyurl.com/6czabs

f) as depicted in the mid-fifteenth-century by the  Master of the Duke of Bedford Hours (c. 1440-1450; Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS. LUDWIG IX 6, fol. 209r):

Saint Luke Painting the Virgin / Bedford Master


g) as depicted by Dieric Bouts the Elder in a mid- or later fifteenth-century panel painting (c. 1440-1475; transferred to canvas) in Penrhyn Castle, Bangor, North Wales:

Penrhyn Castle © National Trust


h) as depicted in grisaille by Jean le Tavernier in the mid-fifteenth-century Hours of Philip of Burgundy (ca. 1451-1460; Use of Paris; Den Haag, KB, ms. 76 F 2, fol. 255r):
http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_76f2%3A255r_min

i) as depicted by Simon Marmion in a cutting, from a later fifteenth-century book of hours (c. 1465-1470), in the British Library, London:
https://www.pubhist.com/w5513

j) as depicted in a later fifteenth-century glass window in the cathédrale Notre-Dame in Évreux (c. 1467-1469; w. 4);
http://tinyurl.com/nvadcjt
Detail view:

Image agrandie numéro 10


k) as depicted in a later fifteenth-century Gospels for the Use of the Parlement de Bourgogne (c. 1470; Besançon, Bibliothèques municipales, ms. 93, fol. 018):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht5/IRHT_083574-p.jpg

l) in a later fifteenth-century book of hours according to the Use of Saintes (c. 1470-1480; Besançon, Bibliothèques municipales, ms. 150, fol. 57v):
http://www.enluminures.culture.fr/Wave/savimage/enlumine/irht5/IRHT_084380-p.jpg

m) as depicted by Gabriel Mälesskircher in a later fifteenth-century panel painting (1478) in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid:
http://www.museothyssen.org/en/thyssen/ficha_obra/330

n) as depicted by Derick Baegert in a late fifteenth-century painting (c. 1485) in the LWL-Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Münster (Westfalen):



o) as depicted (left margin at top) in a hand-coloured woodcut in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's late fifteenth-century Weltchronik (Nuremberg Chronicle; 1493) at fol. CVIIIr):
http://www.beloit.edu/nuremberg/book/6th_age/right_page/12%20%28Folio%20CVIIIr%29.pdf

p) as portrayed in two places on the late fifteenth-century Lukasaltar in the Evangelisch-lutherische Hauptkirche St. Jakobi in Hamburg (1499):
1) in a carving in high relief in the central panel of the opened altar (lower register at right; at left, Anna Selbdritt):



Detail view:



2) in a panel painting on an outer wing:



q) as portrayed in high relief by Jacob Beinhart in an early sixteenth-century wood sculpture (1506) in the National Museum in Warsaw:



r) as depicted by Niklaus Manuel in an early sixteenth-century panel painting (1515; from a dismembered altar of St. Anne) in the Kustmuseum Bern:



s) as depicted by a follower of Quentin Matsys (Massys, Metsys) in an earlier sixteenth-century panel painting (c. 1520) in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University:



t) as depicted in the earlier sixteenth-century Hours of Françoise Brinnon (1524; Den Haag, Museum Meermanno, cod. 10 F 33, fol. 15v):
http://manuscripts.kb.nl/zoom/BYVANCKB%3Amimi_mmw_10f33%3A015v_min


And a few period-pertinent images of St. Luke displaying a painted portrait of the BVM:

aa) as depicted in a late fifteenth-century book of hours according to the Use of Tours (Tours, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2042, fol. 8r):



bb) as depicted by Jean Bourdichon in the early sixteenth-century Grandes Heures d'Anne de Bretagne (c. 1503-1508; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 9474, fol. 19v):

Grandes Heures d'Anne de Bretagne.


cc) as depicted by Vincenzo Foppa in an early sixteenth-century vault fresco (1510s) in Milan's chiesa di San Maurizio al Monastero Maggiore:




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