27 Works, RELIGIOUS ART - 15 & 16th Century Carvings & Sculpture from the Bible!; With Footnotes - 7

Circle of Hans Multscher (circa 1400-1467), German, Ulm, circa 1430-1440
SAINT CATHERINE
gilt and polychromed wood
93cm., 36 5/8 in.

The rich drapery and contrapposto stance are seen in Multscher's female figures from the second quarter of the fifteenth century. Although the present figure's slender forms are not typical of female figures by the sculptor, they find a comparison in the fragmented Angels surrounding 'Karg-Nische' at Ulm Minster of 1433, which are also characterised by their animated drapery. It is likely that the St Catherine was executed by a sculptor from Multscher's close circle, if not his own workshop. More

Hans Multscher (ca. 1400–1467) was a German sculptor and painter. He made himself with new artistic styles from northern France and the Netherlands, and became a free citizen of the city of Ulm in 1427. There, he married Adelheid Kitzin the same year. He ran his own business as a painter and sculptor, together with his brother Heinrich Multscher. More

Hans Multscher (1400–1467
Female Saint.
Date mid 15th century
Polychromy on wood
128.4 × 48 × 33.2 cm (50.6 × 18.9 × 13.1 in)
]National Museum in Warsaw

Atelier of Hans Multscher
Madonna and Child, c. 1450
Main-Franconian Museum, Fortress of Marienberg, Würzburg, Germany

English, Nottingham, first half 15th century
RELIEF WITH CHRIST WASHING THE FEET OF THE APOSTLES
Alabaster, with traces of gilding and polychromy, on a wood mount
Alabaster: 52cm., 20 1/2 in.
56 by 28.5cm., 22 by 11 1/4 in. overall

Swiss or Austrian, early 16th century
SAINT CLEMENT
polychromed pine
88cm., 34 5/8 in.

Pope Clement I (died 99), also known as Saint Clement of Rome, is listed as Bishop of Rome, holding office from 88 to his death in 99. He is considered to be the first Apostolic Father of the Church.

Few details are known about Clement's life. Clement was consecrated by Saint Peter, and he is known to have been a leading member of the church in Rome in the late 1st century. Early church lists place him as the second or third bishop of Rome after Saint Peter. It was Clement that Peter entrusted the Church as a whole, appointing him as his successor. Tertullian considered Clement to be the immediate successor of Peter. 

Many legends surround Saint Clement, some suggest he was the first man to refine iron from ore, and to shoe a horse. Clementine customs may be survivals of earlier pagan rituals, a confusion of Saint Clement with the early Saxon Wayland, or Wayland the smith, a mythical metalworker. He shares this feast day, which marks the beginning of winter, with the saint.

Clement was banished from Rome to the Chersonesus during the reign of the Emperor Trajan and was set to work in a stone quarry. Finding on his arrival that the prisoners were suffering from lack of water, he knelt down in prayer. Looking up, he saw a lamb on a hill, went to where the lamb had stood and struck the ground with his pickaxe, releasing a gushing stream of clear water. This miracle resulted in the conversion of large numbers of the local pagans and his fellow prisoners to Christianity. As punishment, Saint Clement was martyred by being tied to an anchor and thrown from a boat into the Black Sea. More

A so-called 'Poupée de Malines'
polychrome and gilt decorated walnut
Low Countries - Malines
16thC, H 34,5 cm

Circle of Guyot de Beaugrant (circa 1500-1549), Spanish, mid 16th century
THE LAMENTATION
gilt and polychromed wood, with a later pine base
group: 80 by 79cm., 31 1/2  by 31 1/8 in

The Lamentation of Christ is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque. After Jesus was crucified, his body was removed from the cross and his friends mourned over his body. This event has been depicted by many different artists.

Lamentation works are very often included in cycles of the Life of Christ, and also form the subject of many individual works. More

Circle of Hans Klocker (active 1478-1500), South Tyrolean, circa 1490-1500
VIRGIN AND CHILD
gilt and polychromed wood
130cm., 51 1/4 in.

Hans Klocker (before 1474-after 1500) was a late Gothic sculptor, active in South Tyrol; at the court of the bishop of Brixen since 1477, although he is mentioned for the first time in this context in 1482. He is known to have created an altarpiece for the church in St. Leonhard in Passeier in 1486-90 and 1498 he was working on another for the church in Kaltern an der Weinstraße. The last time his name is mentioned is in 1500, when he made an altarpiece for the Franciscans in Brixen. Altarpieces by his hand are also known from Tramin an der Weinstraße (now in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich), Montan (now in Bolzano City Museum) and South Tyrol.  More

German, Lower Bavaria, circa 1510
RELIEF WITH ANNA SELBDRITT
Representation of St. Anne with her ​​daughter Maria and the baby Jesus
polychromed limewood
73 by 58cm., 28¾ by 22 7/8 in.

Southern German, circa 1510-1520
ANNA SELBDRITT
Representation of St. Anne with her ​​daughter Maria and the baby Jesus
gilt and polychromed limewood
60.5cm., 23¾in.

Southern Netherlandish, Brabant, early 16th century
GROUP WITH THE DEPOSITION OF CHRIST
The Entombment of Christ
partially polychromed and gilt wood
34 by 45cm., 13 3/8  by 17¾in.

Circle of Tilman Riemenschneider (c. 1460-1531)
German, Franconia, circa 1510
SAINT SEBASTIAN
limewood, on a modern wood stand
figure: 96cm., 37¾in.
stand: 2.5cm., 1in

Saint Sebastian (died c. 288) was an early Christian saint and martyr. According to Christian belief, he was killed during the Roman emperor Diocletian's persecution of Christians. He is commonly depicted in art and literature tied to a post or tree and shot with arrows. Despite this being the most common artistic depiction of Sebastian, he was, according to legend, rescued and healed by Irene of Rome. Shortly afterwards he went to Diocletian to warn him about his sins, and as a result was clubbed to death. He is venerated in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. More

Tilman Riemenschneider (c. 1460 – 7 July 1531) was a German sculptor and woodcarver active in Würzburg from 1483. He was one of the most prolific and versatile sculptors of the transition period between late Gothic and Renaissance, a master in stone and limewood. More

Circle of Tilman Riemenschneider (c. 1460-1531)
German, Franconia, circa 1510-1530
SAINT BARBARA
with a label to the reverse with a faint inscription in ink: ... Bapa ...
gilt and polychromed limewood
112.5cm., 44 1/4 in. 

Saint Barbara, known in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Great Martyr Barbara, was an early Christian saint and martyr. Accounts place her in the 3rd century in Nicomedia, present-day Turkey or in Heliopolis of Phoenicia, present-day Baalbek, Lebanon. Her name can be traced to the 7th century, and veneration of her was common, especially in the East, from the 9th century.

Barbara, the daughter of a rich pagan who carefully guarded and kept her locked up in a tower in order to preserve her from the outside world. Having secretly become a Christian, she rejected an offer of marriage that she received through him.

Before going on a journey, he commanded that a private bath-house be erected for her use near her dwelling. When her father returned, she acknowledged herself to be a Christian; upon this he drew his sword to kill her, but her prayers created an opening in the tower wall and she was miraculously transported to a mountain gorge, where two shepherds watched their flocks. Dioscorus, in pursuit of his daughter, was rebuffed by the first shepherd, but the second betrayed her and was turned to stone and his flock changed to locusts.

Tilman Riemenschneider
Saint Barbara, c. 1510
Bayerisches Nationalmuseum

Dragged before the prefect of the province, Martinianus, who had her cruelly tortured, Barbara held true to her faith. During the night, the dark prison was bathed in light and new miracles occurred. Every morning her wounds were healed. Torches that were to be used to burn her went out as soon as they came near her. Finally she was condemned to death by beheading. Her father himself carried out the death-sentence. However, as punishment for this, he was struck by lightning on the way home and his body was consumed by flame. Barbara was buried by a Christian, Valentinus, and her tomb became the site of miracles. More

Southern German, Bavaria, circa 1520
FEMALE SAINT
gilt and polychromed limewood
68cm., 26 3/4 in

Italian, Faenza, circa 1500
SEATED BISHOP
glazed earthenware
31cm., 12¼in.

Northern Italian, 16th century
PAIR OF KNEELING ANGELS
polychromed and gilt wood
46cm., 18 1/8 in. and 46.5cm., 18¼in.

Polychrome and gilt decorated wooden Holy Virgin and Child, 
Low Countries, late 17thC, H 71 cm 

A polychrome and gilt decorated oak
Female Saint
late 17thC, H 60,5 cm

A polychrome and gilt decorated wooden Saint with baby Jesus
17thC, H 64,5 cm 

A polychrome decorated limewood Saint,
Early 18thC, H 44,5cm

A polychrome decorated limewood Saint
17thC
H 84,5cm

A limewood female Saint, 
17thC, 
H 66,5 cm

A polychrome and gilt decorated wooden Saint Roch
probably French,
Late 17thC
H 84,5cm 

Saint Roch or Rocco , c. 1348 – 15/16 August 1376/79, was a Catholic saint, and a confessor. He is specially invoked against the plague. He is a patron saint of dogs and falsely accused people, among other things.

He was born at Montpellier, at that time "upon the border of France", the son of the noble governor of that city. Even his birth was accounted a miracle, for his noble mother had been barren until she prayed to the Virgin Mary. Miraculously marked from birth with a red cross on his breast that grew as he did, he early began to manifest strict asceticism and great devoutnes.

On the death of his parents in his twentieth year he distributed all his worldly goods among the poor like Francis of Assisi—though his father on his deathbed had ordained him governor of Montpellier—and set out as a mendicant pilgrim for Rome. Coming into Italy during an epidemic of plague, he was very diligent in tending the sick in the public hospitals at Acquapendente, Cesena, Rimini, Novara and Rome, and is said to have effected many miraculous cures by prayer and the sign of the cross and the touch of his hand. At Rome he preserved the "cardinal of Angleria in Lombardy" by making the mark of the cross on his forehead, which miraculously remained. Ministering at Piacenza he himself finally fell ill. He was expelled from the town; and withdrew into the forest, where he made himself a hut of boughs and leaves, which was miraculously supplied with water by a spring that arose in the place; he would have perished had not a dog belonging to a nobleman named Gothard Palastrelli supplied him with bread and licked his wounds, healing them. Count Gothard, following his hunting dog that carried the bread, discovered Saint Roch and became his acolyte.

On his return incognito to Montpellier he was arrested as a spy (by orders of his own uncle) and thrown into prison, where he languished five years and died on 16 August 1327, without revealing his name, to avoid worldly glory. More

A polychrome decorated wooden female Saint
17thC
H 102 cm

A polychrome decorated limewood Holy Virgin and Child,
17thC
H 91 cm




Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others


Acknowledgement: Carlo BonteSotheby's, 

15 Paintings, RELIGIOUS ART - Paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder, of Judith and Holofernes. 21

Despite their ghastly subject, these strange paintings are singularly beautiful and dramatic: I wanted to draw your attention into their haunted depths.  The fact that an incredibly talented painter spent nearly a decade painting nothing but pretty young women holding severed heads is worth remarking on for its own right. More

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith with the Head of Holofernes, ca. 1530
Oil on linden
35 1/4 x 24 3/8 in. (89.5 x 61.9 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this panel Judith presents the severed head of Holofernes, the Assyrian general directing the siege of her city, having killed him with his own sword. The virtuous heroine, who seduced the enemy with her coquettish appeal, is dressed in an elaborate contemporary costume that is characteristic of Cranach’s courtly mannerism. 

Cranach and his workshop produced several versions of this successful composition, which contrasts the gruesome head and the serene beauty of the biblical heroine. At the lower right, Cranach placed his insignia, a crowned winged serpent with a ring in its mouth. More

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith with the Head of Holofernes, ca. 1530
Oil on panel
77 × 56 cm

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith with the Head of Holofernes," c.1537
Oil on panel
91.4 x 63.5 cm,
Museo de Arte de Ponce, Ponce, Puerto Rico

Judith proudly presents the head of the enemy warlord Holofernes. It is a work of extremes. On the one hand is beautiful Judith, dressed to the fashion of Cranach's days. She is set against a background with a calm landscape. On the other hand are the horrible details of the act she just committed: the veins in the neck of the Assyrian and the blood on the sword.

Cranach made at least 13 paintings on this subject, all showing Judith and the head in a similar pose. This panel is in Glasgow, others are in New York (Met) and Vienna (KHM), amongst others. More

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith Victorious, c. 1530
Beech panel
75 x 56 cm
Jagdschloss Grunewald, Berlin


Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith with the Head of Holofernes, ca. 1530
Medium on lime
86 × 55.7 cm (33.9 × 21.9 in)
Kunsthistorisches Museum

The painting was produced around 1525/30: it served as the template for a “Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist” painted around 1600 at the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague. In this Point of View the two paintings are displayed together, emphasising the contentual ambivalence of these related compositions: Cranach presents Judith as a virtuous heroine from the Old Testament who vanquished Holofernes, the powerful enemy of her people and her faith. Salome, however, was responsible for the beheading of Saint John the Baptist. Once Judith was displayed with Salome the valiant heroine who defended the true faith morphed into a wily widow. More

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith with the Head of Holofernes, c.1530
Oil on wood
86 × 59 cm
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Portrait of a Lady of the Saxon Court as Judith with the Head of Holofernes, ca. 1537–1540
Oil On Wood Panel
31 7/16 x 21 7/8 (79.9 x 55.6 cm)
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Cranach’s work pauses the narrative at a moment in time where Judith has slain Holofernes and now holds his head as a token on her triumph over him. True to the Old Testament story, she is shown as a seductive woman adorned in luxurious clothing and jewelry. Her eyes hint at the seduction she used to entrap Holofernes and her garments feature a level of detail that even the elite would envy. More

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith with the Head of Holofernes, circa 1550
Oil on oak
45.9 × 34.2 cm (18.1 × 13.5 in)
National Gallery of Ireland

Judith becomes a symbol of victory over the oppressive enemy at the time of Protestant Reformation and a figure for German nationalism. 

Cranach’s painting also uses the deep cuts in Judith’s neckline and mystic gaze to show her as a dangerous female seductress.   More

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith with the Head of Holofernes, c. 153
Oil on poplar wood
72 x 56 cm
Suermondt Ludwig Museum

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith with the Head of Holofernes, 1525
Oil on panel
83.5 x 54.6 cm
Syracuse University Art Collection, Syracuse, New York, USA

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith with the Head of Holofernes, c 1526-30
Oil and tempera on limewood
87 x 58 cm
Staatliche Museen, Kassel,Germany

A subtle inconsistency comes in the form of an anachronism: Judith is adorned in clothing contemporary to the German elite of Cranach’s 15th century time period. If we look out the window we can also see that the setting seems to be something that Cranach painted as a simple landscape and not at all reminiscent of Bethulia’s mountains and valleys as described in the Old Testament. 

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith and Holofernes 
Oil on panel 
8¼ x 5¾ in. (21 x 14.6 cm.) 

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472 – 16 October 1553) was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his portraits, both of German princes and those of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, whose cause he embraced with enthusiasm, becoming a close friend of Martin Luther. 

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith and Holofernes
Oil on panel
83.5 x 93.5 cm

He also painted religious subjects, first in the Catholic tradition, and later trying to find new ways of conveying Lutheran religious concerns in art. He continued throughout his career to paint nude subjects drawn from mythology and religion. He had a large workshop and many works exist in different versions; his son Lucas Cranach the Younger, and others, continued to create versions of his father's works for decades after his death. Lucas Cranach the Elder has been considered the most successful German artist of his time More

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith with the head of Holofernes and a servant, after 1537
Painting on lime
75.2 × 51 cm (29.6 × 20.1 in)
Kunsthistorisches Museum

The account of the beheading of Holofernes by Judith is given in the deuterocanonical Book of Judith, and is the subject of many paintings and sculptures from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In the story, Judith, a beautiful widow, is able to enter the tent of Holofernes because of his desire for her. Holofernes was an Assyrian general who was about to destroy Judith's home, the city of Bethulia. Overcome with drink, he passes out and is decapitated by Judith; his head is taken away in a basket (often depicted as carried by an elderly female servant).

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
Judith and Two Servants, 1525
Oil on wood
Diameter: 14.6 cm
Collection of Dr. Rau, Cologne, Germany

Artists have mainly chosen one of two possible scenes (with or without the servant): the decapitation, with Holofernes prone on the bed, or the heroine holding or carrying the head, often assisted by her maid The smaller background scene has Judith and her servant stick Holofernes' head in a sack, the headless body standing behind with his arm waving helplessly. The subject is one of the most commonly shown in the Power of Women topos.

Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, Kronach 1472–1553 Weimar)
The death of Holofernes, c. 1531
Oil on lime
98 × 73.6 cm (38.6 × 29 in)
Castle Museum Schloss Friedenstein

In European art, Judith is very often accompanied by her maid at her shoulder, which helps to distinguish her from Salome, who also carries her victim's head on a silver charger (plate). However, a Northern tradition developed whereby Judith had both a maid and a charger, famously taken by Erwin Panofsky as an example of the knowledge needed in the study of iconography. For many artists and scholars, Judith's sexualized femininity interestingly and sometimes contradictorily combined with her masculine aggression. Judith was one of the virtuous women whom Van Beverwijck mentioned in his published apology (1639) for the superiority of women to men, and a common example of the Power of Women iconographic theme in the Northern Renaissance. More



Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others

Acknowledgement: The Metropolitan Museum of Artjudith2you

04 Paintings, RELIGIOUS ART - Paintings from the Bible by Wilhelm Trübner, 1851 – 1917, with footnotes, 20

Luca Signorelli (c. 1445 – 16 October 1523) was an Italian Renaissance painter who was noted in particular for his ability as a draughtsman and his use of foreshortening. His massive frescoes of the Last Judgment (1499–1503) in Orvieto Cathedral are considered his masterpiece. More

Wilhelm Trübner, 1851 – 1917
Salome, 1897
Oil on cardboard 
Height: 44 cm (17.32 in.), Width: 36.5 cm (14.37 in.)
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz  (Austria - Linz)

Wilhelm Trübner (February 3, 1851 – December 21, 1917) was a German realist painter of the circle of Wilhelm Leibl. He was born in Heidelberg and had early training as a goldsmith. In 1867 he met classicist painter Anselm Feuerbach who encouraged him to study painting, and he began studies in Karlsruhe under Fedor Dietz. The next year saw him studying at the Kunstacademie in Munich, where he was to be greatly impressed by an international exhibition of paintings by Leibl and Gustave Courbet. Courbet visited Munich in 1869, not only exhibiting his work but demonstrating his alla prima method of working quickly from nature in public performances. This had an immediate impact on many of the city's young artists, who found Courbet's approach an invigorating alternative to the shopworn academic tradition.

Wilhelm Trübner (German, 1851–1917)
Salome, 1898
Oil on cardboard
39 3/4 × 21 in. (100.97 × 53.34 cm)
Milwaukee Art Museum

The early 1870s were a period of discovery for Trübner. He travelled to Italy, Holland and Belgium, and in Paris encountered the art of Manet, whose influence can be seen in the spontaneous yet restrained style of Trübner's portraits and landscapes. During this period he also made the acquaintance of Carl Schuch, Albert Lang and Hans Thoma, German painters who, like Trübner, greatly admired the unsentimental realism of Wilhelm Leibl. This group of artists came to be known as the "Leibl circle".

Wilhelm Trübner, 1851 – 1917
Christ Taken down from the Cross, 1874
Oil on canvas
Height: 79.5 cm (31.3 in.), Width: 95 cm (37.4 in.)
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart  (Germany - Stuttgart)

He published writings on art theory in 1892 and 1898, which express above all the idea that "beauty must lie in the painting itself, not in the subject". By urging the viewer to discover beauty in a painting's formal values, its colors, proportions, and surface, Trübner advanced a philosophy of "art for art's sake". In 1901 he joined the recently formed Berlin Secession, at the time Germany's most important forum for the exhibition of avant-garde art. From 1903 until his death in 1917 he was a professor at the Academy of Arts in Karlsruhe, also serving as director from 1904 to 1910. More


Wilhelm Trübner, 1851 – 1917
Dante's Inferno, 1880
Oil on canvas
Height: 137 cm (53.94 in.), Width: 249 cm (98.03 in.)
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister im Schloss Wilhelmshöhe - Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel  (Germany - Kassel)

Julyan Davis
Exotic Dancer posing as ‘Salome’, c. 2009
2034 × 2151

Julyan Davis, British (b. 1965). Julyan Davis is an English-born artist who now lives in the United States. He received his art training at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London. In 1988, having completed his B.A. in painting and printmaking, he traveled to the South on a painting trip that was also fueled by an interest in the history of Demopolis, Alabama and its settling by Bonapartist exiles. Julyan’s home is now in Asheville, North Carolina. More




Acknowledgement: Capitolium Art Casa D'Aste

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others