Ad Imaginem Dei

I'm Back, Sort Of

2026-09-30T15:36:39.562-04:00

James Tissot, Jesus Healing the Woman Bent Over
French, c. 1886-1894
New York, Brooklyn Musuem

Those who have been following this blog may have noticed that I have not posted anything new, nor updated the list of exhibitions since early June. That is because I have been in the hospital and in residential rehab for months.

On the night of Thursday, June 18th I went to bed as usual. Several hours later, while it was still dark, I woke up to find myself on the floor beside the bed. I tried to get up but couldn't. I couldn't reach either my corded phone or my cell phone. Both were high above my head, resting on tabletops where the corded phone lived and the cell phone was charging. My IPad was also outside my reach. I was unable to reach the doorknob to open the door, which I had locked on going to bed.

I kept trying to stand up all night and into the next day. But I couldn't. no matter what I tried to do. I continued to try the following night and the next day. I was able to drink something because I had accidentally left a half empty bottle of ginger ale on the floor near the leg of a chair when I had gone to bed. That was my only source of liquid during the time I spent on the floor and I had no food.

By Sunday I was rapidly losing the ability to move. I could barely lift my head and moved around by lying down and pushing myself with my legs. Things were getting desperate. If I couldn't get help soon, I would probably die. There was one possible way in which I could try to get some help from the outside. I could try to knock down the housephone, which had been sitting high above my head.

It worked! When the doorman answered I yelled into the mouthpiece that I was on the floor unable to get up and had been there for three days. He responded by saying that he would call an ambulance immediately. Literally within minutes they were at my door with two fire fighters. The fire fighters swung their axes and got the door lock off and the EMT workers scooped me up and carried me to the hospital.

At the hospital I was checked out and hydrated, examined and probed. Within three days I was moved to a residential rehab where I spent all summer, trying to walk. Apparently, my fall and time on the floor had seriously worsened my back,.

I am able to walk very short distance with great pain. But I cannot stand for any length of time. I am investigating the possibility of another back surgery. I don't know yet if I will be able to have it but I do hope that I can. I am in great pain almost all the time now.

So, within the time that has elapsed and for the forseeable future I am housebound. I have little energy to keep up with the blog. But I may make some contributions from time to time. And I will try to let you know what is happening.

Resources for Corpus Christi

2026-06-03T22:25:57.372-04:00

Jean Bourdichon, Angels Holding the Host for Adoration
From Heures de Frédéric d'Aragon
French (Tours), c. 1501-1504
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 10532, fol. 302r

"Jesus said to the Jewish crowds:
"I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give
is my flesh for the life of the world."

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
Jesus said to them,
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food,
and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me
will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever."

John 6:51-58

(Gospel for the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ)

The feast of Corpus Christi or Corpus Domini or The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is a special feast day of the Church. It occurs on either the Thursday after Trinity Sunday (in many countries) or on the Sunday after Trinity Sunday (in the United States). It focuses our attention on the mystery of the Eucharist, in which the bread and wine that we offer are transformed into the true Body and Blood of Christ.

It was officially established for the universal Church in 1264 by Pope Urban IV, who asked St. Thomas Aquinas to compose the liturgical prayers for the feast. Thomas responded with some of the most beautiful prayers and hymns in the history of the Church. Artists also developed a complex and fascinating repertoire of images which celebrate the same mystery. In past essays I have described many of the ways in which artists have responded. Here is a series of links which you can use to access this material.

Lists of Posts Related to the Feast of Corpus Christi

“The Living Bread That Came Down From Heaven”

"Of the Blood, All Price Exceeding, Shed by Our Immortal King"

"The Miracle of the Mule – A Corpus Christi Reflection"

The Last Supper vs. the Institution of the Eucharist

Corpus Christi in the Vatican Stanze

Posts Reviewing the 2013 Exhibition Illuminating Faith: The Eucharist in Medieval Life and Art at the Morgan Library, New York

Illuminating Eucharistic Faith at the Morgan Library

The Sacrifice of the Mass at the Morgan

The Eucharist and the Old Testament at the Morgan Library

Domestic Devotion to the Eucharist at the Morgan Library

The Feast of Corpus Christi at the Morgan Library

Eucharistic Miracles and Final Ends at the Morgan Library

Posts Examining the Related Iconography of the Manna in the Desert, an Old Testament Prefiguration of the Eucharist, and the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish, a New Testament Prefiguration
Prefiguring Salvation –Manna in the Desert and the Bread from Heaven, Part I
Prefiguring Salvation -- Manna in the Desert and the Bread from Heaven, Part II
Prefiguring Salvation -- Manna in the Desert and the Bread from Heaven, Part III
Illustrating Miracles – Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish

Links for the Iconography of the Holy Trinity

2026-05-28T21:06:44.242-04:00

Master of the Trinity, The Holy Trinity
From the Petites Heures of Jean de Berry
French (Bourges), c. 1385-1390
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 18014, fol. 137v

In this image the Trinity is shown as two identical figures representing the Father and

the Son and a dove representing the Holy Spirit. This is only one of many attempts

by artists to give visual form to the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

Every year the Sunday after Pentecost is devoted to the contemplation of the Holy Trinity, a distinctly Christian belief.

Christians believe in and worship One God. But they believe that this One God is composed of Three "Persons", called the Holy Trinity in human language.1 What Christians do NOT believe in is three gods. Rather, in some way that we humans cannot understand, God is a community of love whose essence is being.

Trinitarian belief is unique among the monotheistic religions, not appearing in either Judaism or Islam, although it is hinted at in the Old Testament. There are God's words at the creation of humans (Genesis 1:26-27) and in the three visitors who come to Abraham's tent in Mamre, who are treated variously as three and as one and that one is "the Lord" (Genesis 18). It is also part of Christianity from the very beginning.

Within twenty to twenty-five years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Saint Paul wrote in his Second Letter to the Corinthians: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." (2 Corinthians 13:13) This letter is generally dated to the year 57.2 So, this is not a belief that appeared after a couple of hundred years, but one that was already there during the lifetime of the Apostles (remember that Peter is believed to have been executed in the year 64). These people who knew Jesus of Nazareth, who had traveled with him, who had eaten with him, who had seen him put to death and had seen him rise again to walk and eat with them had come to the understanding that he was not only from God, but actually was a manifestation of God. These men and women who had seen him ascend to heaven and had hidden away in prayer in the days after that event had experienced something on the tenth day that had caused them to cast caution aside and to boldly proclaim that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God, was God and that they had received a divine spirit, a Holy Spirit, that sent them forth to preach this to everyone. By 57 they had come to understand that all these experiences were experiences of the one God, but that these experiences were indicative of different tones within the harmony that is God.

These Apostles and disciples, Jesus’ companions during His life, were Jewish, as was Paul, and, therefore, presumably strong believers in only one God. This early appearance of belief in God as three tones, three "Persons", implies a very profound shift in their thinking. One can only presume that this shift came from the revelation they experienced from the Resurrection, the Ascension and the Descent of the Holy Spirit.

Understanding this exceptional revelation of the nature of God is one that has taxed the minds of Christians, including great poets and great theologians, as well as ordinary believers, for the past 2,000 years. It remains mysterious.

It has also taxed those who work in the visual arts. How can one depict a God who is one but also three? How does one visualize something that seems impossible to express in language? There have been various themes that artists have developed over the centuries and I have reviewed several of them in the past decade. So, I offer these links to you as an exploration of the attempt by Christian artists to express this great mystery of the faith.

This essay is the most general of the group.

Iconography of the Holy Trinity – Imagining The Unimaginable

The other essays look at specific forms which the artistic imagination has developed to present aspects of the life of the Holy Trinity.

Iconography of the Holy Trinity -- The Throne of Grace

Iconography of the Holy Trinity -- The Pietà of the Father, Divine Love Made Visible

This essay deals with the visual representation of the Holy Spirit as a dove.

A Dove Descending

If you wish to delve deeper into this fascinating subject you might want to check out the following You Tube segments:

A recent video on of theological reflections on the Trinity by Bishop Robert Barron

And a recording of the legendary preacher, the Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen.

1. I have put the word Persons in quotes to signify that this is only a feeble description of the reality of God. However, our human speech does not really have an appropriate word for this reality and the word "person" (in whatever language you speak) is the best we can do.

2. For the date see https://bible.usccb.org/bible/2corinthians/0

Links for Pentecost

2026-05-22T17:57:13.061-04:00

Pentecost
From a Bible historiale by Guiard des Moulilns
French (Saint-Omer), 14th Century
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 152, fol. 451r

Over the last several years I have presented various essays on different aspects of the event and feast of Pentecost. This day on which the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles following the Ascension of Jesus has frequently been called the birthday of the Church. That is for good reason.

While the Apostles may have recovered their belief in Jesus and realized his divinity and power during the period from the Resurrection to the Ascension of Jesus they were still incompletely formed for their mission. However, since Jesus had promised to send them the Spirit they were hopeful. Retreating in a body to a single place to pray, they spent nine days praying together. What they prayed for and what they expected we don't know, but we do know what they received and it is mysterious.

"When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.

And suddenly there came from the sky
a noise like a strong driving wind,
and it filled the entire house in which they were.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak in different tongues,
as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim."

(Acts 2:1-4) First Reading for Pentecost Sunday, Masses During the Day

When the moment had passed, the Apostles were changed forever. No longer timid and afraid, they were now "filled with the Holy Spirit" and able to communicate with others in languages they had not known before. They were "enabled to proclaim" (Acts 2:4).

And proclaim they did, beginning that very day.

For "there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven staying in Jerusalem.

At this sound, they gathered in a large crowd,
but they were confused
because each one heard them speaking in his own language.
They were astounded, and in amazement they asked,
"Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?
Then how does each of us hear them in his native language?
We are Parthians, Medes, and Elamites,
inhabitants of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia,
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia,
Egypt and the districts of Libya near Cyrene,
as well as travelers from Rome,
both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs,
yet we hear them speaking in our own tongues
of the mighty acts of God."

(Acts 2:4-11) First Reading for Pentecost Sunday, Masses During the Day

The ways in which artists have reflected these passages have been varied over the centuries. Over these last years I have prepared essays that demonstrate the various approaches to this mysterious event in the life of the Church. Click on the links below to be directed to each.

At This Sound, They Gathered In a Crowd

A Dove Descending

Tongues of Fire

Mary, Mother of the Church

So, Happy Birthday to all those who make up the current, terrestrial Church and also to those of the Church in Purgatory and of the Church in Celestial Bliss!

Excerpts from the Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States of America, second typical edition © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. Used with permission. All rights reserved. No portion of this text may be reproduced by any means without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Links to the Iconography of the Ascension

2026-05-04T14:26:00.000-04:00

Giotto, The Ascension
Italian, c. 1304-1306
Padue, Scrovegni/Arena Chapel

Forty days after the celebration of Christ's Resurrection, the Church celebrates the end of His bodily presence on this planet with the feast of the Ascension.

This event, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, ends Jesus' time on earth in visible, human form. With His Ascension the Apostles were left to pursue the mission He gave them in parting, as reported by the writers of the Synoptic Gospels.

Mark

“Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned." Mark 16:15-16

Matthew

"Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." Matthew 28:19-20

Luke

"And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day

and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things." Luke 24:46-49

The Iconography of the Ascension

Throughout time, artists have found differing ways of depicting this event. Some of them are discussed in the following essays.

Striding into the Sky		https://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/06/iconography-of-ascension-part-i-of-iv.html
Lifted in a Mondorla or on a Cloud		http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2017/05/iconography-of-ascension-part-ii-of-iv.html
The Disappearing Feet		http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2017/05/iconography-of-ascension-part-iii-of-iv.html
The Direct Approach		http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2017/05/iconography-of-ascension-part-iv-of-iv.html

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Links for the Easter Season

2026-04-04T21:50:00.002-04:00

Anthony van Dyck, The Resurrection
Flemish, c. 1631-1632
Hartford (CT), Wadsworth Athenaeum

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

The days of Lent and the days of sadness that are the Triduum are past and Easter 2026 has arrived!

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

I wish you a happy and profoundly inspiring Easter Season.

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

To guide some of your explorations of the themes of this joyful season I recommend to you the links below. They lead to some of the commentary that I have written over the years regarding the iconography of the Easter Season, which extends from this happy day till Pentecost and Trinity Sunday.

Please feel free to explore the art created to imagine the Resurrection and the days immediately following, all the way through to the feast of the Holy Trinity. I hope that considering these events and the pictures that artists have created to illustrate them over the centuries will help you to feel more connected to the long tradition of Christian art offered to the glory of God and to the living Church of our own time.

Links have constantly been improved over the years. New images, better quality images and new material are constantly being incorporated. If the original publication date suggests the material is now old, it isn't. I am constantly revising and housekeeping.

Please note that over the course of the Easter Season I will be overhauling every one of the essays listed below to swap out old images with few pixels for newer ones with a greater number of pixels, giving you more visible details when you enlarge the images. I will also be adding new images that turn up in the course of my hunt for improved ones (and this happens all the time). Much more material turns up every year! So, check back often to see what's new.

The Resurrection, the Incredulity of Thomas, Emmaus

Title

Link

The Women at the Tomb

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/iconography-of-resurrection-women-at.html

Noli Me Tangere

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/iconography-of-resurrection-noli-me.html

Jesus, the Gardener

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2017/04/iconography-of-resurrection-she-thought.html

The Incredulity of St. Thomas (Doubting Thomas)

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/05/iconography-of-resurrection-incredulity.html

Emmaus -- The Journey

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/05/iconography-of-resurrection-emmaus.html

Emmaus -- The Recognition

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/05/iconography-of-resurrection-emmaus_07.html

Climbing from the Tomb

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/05/iconography-of-resurrection-climbing.html

Hovering over the Tomb

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/05/iconography-of-resurrection-hovering.html

Bursting from the Tomb

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/05/iconography-of-resurrection-bursting.html

An Awkward
Resurrection Image

Apparitions

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-happy-and-blessed-easter-season-to.html

Good Shepherd Sunday

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/05/good-shepherd-sunday-fourth-sunday-of.html

The Lake of Galilee -- The Disciples Go Fishing

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/05/iconography-of-resurrection-lake-of.html

Commission to Peter -- The Good Shepherd Transfers Responsibility

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/05/iconography-of-resurrection-peters.html

The Commission to the Apostles

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/05/iconography-of-resurrection-commission.html

Christ Appears to His Mother

Christ Presents the Redeemed to His Mother

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/06/iconography-of-resurrection-christ.html

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2017/05/iconography-of-resurrection-christ.html

The Ascension

Striding into the Sky

https://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/06/iconography-of-ascension-part-i-of-iv.html

Lifted in a Mondorla or on a Cloud

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2017/05/iconography-of-ascension-part-ii-of-iv.html

The Disappearing Feet

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2017/05/iconography-of-ascension-part-iii-of-iv.html

The Direct Approach

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2017/05/iconography-of-ascension-part-iv-of-iv.html

Pentecost

Tongues of Fire

https://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/05/tongues-of-fire.html

At This Sound, They Gathered In a Crowd

A Dove Descending

The Holy Trinity

Worthy Is The Lamb

Father, Son, Spirit

Iconography of the
Holy Trinity –
Imagining The Unimaginable

The Holy Trinity -- Love Made Visible

The Holy Trinity -- The Throne of Grace

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/05/at-this-sound-they-gathered-in-crowd.html

https://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2020/05/a-dove-descending.html

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/04/worthy-is-lamb.html

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2008/05/father-son-spirit.html

http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2012/06/iconography-of-holy-trinity-imagining.html

https://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2019/06/god-so-loved-world-that-he-gave-his.html

https://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-holy-trinity-throne-of-grace.html

The Day of Gloom and the Coming of the Light

2026-04-03T20:49:00.001-04:00

Paolo Veronese, The Dead Christ Supported By Angels
Italian, c. 1587-1589
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

On a typical Holy Saturday the church is quiet, the tabernacle empty, the altar stripped. People come for services such as Tenebrae, made up of readings, songs and symbolic acts such as the snuffing out of candles or for Confession to ask God for forgiveness.

Basically, the prevailing mood is quiet, a little gloomy even, but with a hint of excitement nonetheless.

Underneath it all is a sense of expectation. And, in the evening, as darkness descends, we gather (or perhaps watch on the net or on TV) to celebrate the Easter Vigil, the Great Vigil, in which the darkness of the tomb is turned to the light of Resurrection.

As the massive newly carved and lit Paschal Candle is carried down the aisle of the darkened church we will be confronted with a symbolic image that has come down to us from remote centuries, for the light represents the Risen Christ. As we light our individual candles from the One Candle the church gradually fills with light. What was obscure and gloomy just moments ago can be seen clearly. It is a magnificent symbol of the Resurrection, of the share we each have in it and of the effect that spreading that light can have on the world.

Deacon Singing the Exultet
From an Exultet Roll
Italian (Montecassino), c. 1072
In this scene he gestures toward the Paschal Candle, which is being incensed

For more information on the images that relate to both the day of waiting and of the Paschal Candle, please click on the following:

The Harrowing of Hell here

The Dead Christ in the Tomb here

Easter Vigil and the Paschal Candle here

© M. Duffy, 2015, updated 2020 and 2021 and 2022

Meditating on the Passion

2026-03-31T22:34:00.001-04:00

Fra Angelico and Assistants, The Mocking of Christ

Italian, c. 1440-1441

Florence, Convent of San Marco, Cell #7

Over the life of this blog I have written extensively about the iconography that surrounds the subject of the Passion of Christ.

Here is a series of links to many of those articles. They are organized around themes suggested by meditations, both theological and artistic, and by such devotions as the Rosary and the Stations of the Cross.

As we experience the final week of Lent, I offer them for your perusal.

I updated many of these listings over the last few years. Sometimes this has resulted in the addition of new material. In most cases I have replaced the picture files with newly available photos in higher definition than was available when the essays were originally written.

There is a great deal of material here that you can use to explore the themes presented. May you have a fruitful experience while using them.

2012 Series: Meditations on the Passion
Meditation on the Passion	April 1, 2012	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2012/04/meditation-on-passion.html
The Mocking of Christ by Fra Angelico	April 4, 2012	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2012/04/meditation-on-passion-mocking-of-christ.html
The Ecce Homo	April 5, 2012	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2012/04/meditation-on-passion-ecce-homo.html
The Man of Sorrows	April 6, 2012	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2012/04/meditation-on-passion-man-of-sorrows.html
In the Tomb 2018 Additions: The Instruments of the Passion The Man of Sorrows with Instruments of the Passion	April 7, 2012 March 28, 2018 March 29, 2018	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2012/04/meditation-on-passion-waiting.html http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2018/03/meditation-on-passion-instruments-of.html http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-man-of-sorrows-with-instruments-of.html

2013 Series: The Sorrowful Mysteries
The Sorrowful Mysteries	March 26, 2013	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-sorrowful-mysteries.html
The Agony in the Garden	March 27, 2013	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-first-sorrowful-mystery-agony-in.html
The Scourging at The Pillar	March 29, 2013	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-second-sorrowful-mystery-scourging.html
The Crowning with Thorns	March 29, 2013	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-third-sorrowful-mystery-crowning.html
The Carrying of the Cross	March 29, 2013	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-fourth-sorrowful-mystery-carrying.html
The Crucifixion	March 30, 2013	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-fifth-sorrowful-mystery-crucifixion.html

2016 Series: The Stations of the Cross
The Stations of the Cross – Introduction	March 9, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-stations-of-cross-introduction.html
Jesus Is Condemned to Death	March 10, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/stations-of-cross-first-station-jesus.html
Jesus Carries the Cross	March 14, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/stations-of-cross-second-station-jesus.html
Jesus Falls, The Third, Seventh and Ninth Stations	March 15, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/stations-of-cross-jesus-falls-third.html
Jesus Meets His Mother	March 16, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/stations-of-cross-fourth-station-jesus.html
Simon of Cyrene Helps Jesus to Carry the Cross	March 16, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/stations-of-cross-fifth-station-simon.html
Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus	March 17, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/stations-of-cross-sixth-station.html
Jesus Meets the Women of Jerusalem	March 20, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/stations-of-cross-eighth-station-jesus.html
Jesus Is Stripped of His Garments	March 21, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/stations-of-cross-tenth-station-jesus.html
Jesus Is Nailed to the Cross	March 22, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/stations-of-cross-eleventh-station.html
Jesus Dies On the Cross	March 23, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/stations-of-cross-twelfth-station-jesus.html
The Body of Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross	March 24, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/stations-of-cross-thirteenth-station.html
The Body of Jesus Is Laid in the Tomb	March 26, 2016	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2016/03/stations-of-cross-fourteenth-station.html

2019 with 2020 update

O Sacred Head Surrounded April 19, 2019 https://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2019/04/o-sacred-head.html

Links for Holy Week

2026-03-26T02:41:00.001-04:00

Giotto, Jesus Washes the Feet of Peter
Italian, c. 1304-1306
Padua, Scrovegni/Arena Chapel (detail)

I won't be blogging anything new during the next few weeks, which include Holy Week (March 29-April 1) and the Paschal Triduum (April 2, 3, and 4). Instead I am providing links to the numerous essays I have written in recent years about the art associated with these days. I will be updating some of these essays with new or refreshed images, so some of them may be unavailable from time to time.

Please use the links below to access them.

Also watch the Featured Posts section on the right for direct links to various associated articles. You may particularly wish to click on the links to the images associated with the Stations of the Cross and the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, both popular devotional prayers recalling the events of Holy Week.


Day	Title	Date Published	Link
*Palm Sunday*	Holy Week with Giotto, Palm Sunday	April 17, 2011	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/holy-week-with-giotto-palm-sunday.html
	Entering Jerusalem, the Hinge to the Passion	April 9, 2017	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2017/04/entering-jerusalem-hinge-to-passion.html

*Monday and* *Tuesday*	Holy Week with Giotto – Jesus and Judas	April 19, 2011	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/holy-week-with-giotto-jesus-and-judas.html

*Wednesday*	Holy Week with Giotto – Judas’ Betrayal I	April 20, 2011	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/holy-week-with-giotto-judas-betrayal-i.html
	Spy Wednesday -- Thirty Pieces of Silver	April 1, 2015	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2015/04/spy-wednesday-thirty-pieces-of-silver.html

*Thursday*	Holy Week with Giotto – Holy Thursday, Washing Feet	April 21, 2011	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/holy-week-with-giotto-holy-thursday.html
	Holy Thursday	April 5, 2012	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2012/04/holy-thursday.html
	Holy Week with Giotto – Judas’ Betrayal II, the Kiss	April 20, 2011	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/holy-week-with-giotto-judas-betrayal-ii.html

Friday	Holy Week with Giotto – Good Friday, Overnight, Christ Before Caiaphas	April 21, 2011	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/holy-week-with-giotto-good-friday.html
	Holy Week with Giotto – Good Friday, Early Morning, Mocking of Christ	April 21, 2011	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/holy-week-with-giotto-good-friday-early.html
	Holy Week with Giotto – Good Friday, Mid-Morning, Via Crucis	April 22, 2011	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/holy-week-with-giotto-good-friday-mid.html
	Holy Week with Giotto – Good Friday, Early Afternoon, the Crucifixion	April 22, 2011	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/holy-week-with-giotto-good-friday-early_22.html
	Holy Week with Giotto – Good Friday, Late Afternoon, the Lamentation	April 22, 2011	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/holy-week-with-giotto-good-friday-late.html

Saturday	Holy Saturday	April 23, 2011	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/04/holy-saturday.html
	O, Key of David! Come, break down the walls of death!	December 20, 2011	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/12/o-key-of-david.html
	Exult! – The Easter Proclamation	March 30, 2013	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2013/03/exult-easter-proclamation.html
	The Day of Gloom and the Coming of the Light Something Strange Is Happening Today © M. Duffy, 2026	April 4, 2015 April 8, 2023	http://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-day-of-gloom-and-coming-of-light.html https://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2011/12/o-key-of-david.html

The Iconography of the Annunciation

2026-03-23T14:02:00.002-04:00

Attributed to the Egerton Master, The Annunciation
From the Hours of Rene of Anjou
French (Paris), 1410
London, British Library
MS Egerton 1070, fol.15v

"" "Be pleased, almighty God,
to accept your Church’s offering,
so that she, who is aware that her beginnings
lie in the Incarnation of your Only Begotten Son,
may rejoice to celebrate his mysteries on this
Solemnity.
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever."

This is the Offertory Prayer of the Mass for the Feast of the Solemnity of the Annunciation, March 25.

At its very beginning Christianity makes an astounding claim. This is that one of God's greatest messengers, the Archangel Gabriel, visited a teenage Jewish girl in the Galilean town of Nazareth and announced to her that she had "found favor with God" to become the mother of a special child. He told her that her child would be a son and would be named Jesus and that "He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Her quite reasonable answer was that she didn't see how this could be as she was a virgin, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” (Luke 1:26-35)

The angel responded with the mysterious words: “The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God." And at these words the girl, whose name was Mary, gave her consent. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” And, nine months later, a baby boy was born in a stable in the Judean town of Bethlehem. (Luke 1:35-38)

This is the Annunciation. It is a feast day of the church that is celebrated on March 25th each year. The date of the event that it commemorates is unknown of course. But there was a belief in the early Church that March 25th was the day on which Jesus was both conceived and crucified. It is difficult to say whether this thinking influenced the date chosen for the celebration of Christmas, the feast of the birth of Christ, as nine months from March 25 is December 25. Or it may have been the other way round, with the date chosen to commemorate the birth of Christ dictating the date on which the Church celebrates his conception.

The Annunciation is a major event in the New Testament, and therefore has a long and complex visual history. Artists have tried to convey some of the mystery surrounding the event and to convey the ways in which thinking about this event developed over time. A list of the many ways in which this iconography has been developed through the centuries is listed below. Please feel free to explore.

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Winter Through Our Ancestors Eyes

2026-01-29T22:22:00.001-05:00

The Limbourg Brothers, January
From the Tres Riches Heures of Jean, Duke de Berry
Flemish, c. 1412-1416
Chantilly, Musée Condé
MS 65, fol. 1v

NOTE: I first published this essay a number of years ago and revised it thoroughly in 2018. In the years since then I have replaced many of the pictures with more recent editions that are clearer and that have better coloring, without making any revisions to the written words. Once again I am publishing it without any rewrites except to update the name of one library. However, as this winter seems to already be particularly abominable in many places, I thought this might be a good moment to send it out once again as a reminder how much has changed and how much has not!

January and February are frequently difficult months to live through, even with all our modern technology. Depending on the year and the location we can be subjected to fierce blizzards and brutal cold in the northern latitudes. In other years we may have deceptive patches of warmer days that turn our minds to spring, only to plunge once more into deep winter. In addition, especially in January, the days are short and, although the turn of the northern hemisphere back toward the sun has begun with the winter solstice in late December, darkness seems to reign interminably. The lack of sunlight can contribute to depression, both physical and mental, and the closing in of life to the indoors contributes to the spread of infections such as influenza and the common cold.

This situation is, of course, nothing new. The earth has tilted on its axis for many millennia, bringing winter and darkness alternately to both lateral hemispheres of the planet. Only the regions near the center of the earth have a relatively stable year-round relationship with the sun.

Since this is so, how did our ancestors in the northern latitudes deal with winter? Is there any way we can find to relate their experience to ours? The answer is yes, at least for Western Europe. We can actually see what they did through the calendar pages of medieval prayer books.

Follower of Jean Pichore, January and February
From a Book of Hours
French (Paris), c. 1490-1500
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M7, fol. 1v

Calendar pages usually formed the first group of pages in missals, books of hours or other prayer books. Their initial purpose was to record the calendar of feast days for each month of the year. By the start of the middle ages the Church already had a well-defined calendar of feasts. There are two kinds of feasts, moveable and fixed. The moveable feasts are those without a specific calendar date, such as Easter, which is set each year by the relationship between the movements of the sun and the movements of the moon (being celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon which follows the spring equinox). Fixed feasts have a specific calendar date (for example Christmas, which is celebrated on December 25 every year). Saints feast days are the most prevalent form of fixed feast, being usually celebrated on the date of the death of the saint.

January Calendar Page

From Hours of Marguerite of Orleans

French (Rennes), c. 1426

Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France

MS Latin 1156 B, fol. 1

The books contained lists of both types of feasts, with the moveable ones being calculated for several years in the future at the time the book was created. However, it is the pages with the fixed feast days that received the most decoration, since they are used year after year. The fixed feasts include important festivals celebrating events in the life of the Virgin Mary (such as the Purification on February 2 or the Nativity of Mary on September 8) as well as the feast days assigned to particular saints (such as Saint Blaise on February 3 or Saint Augustine on August 28).

Calendar pages started out as simple lists of dates and names, just as they appear today in prayer books. Fairly soon, however, small pictures were inserted into the page to enliven them. And these small pictures grew in size to become, by the late middle ages, full page pictures of the natural world and human activity within it. The Renaissance broadened this still further.

The Middle Ages (1100-1500)

January

At the start the images were small and often focused on two things: the sign of the zodiac associated with the month and an easily recognizable activity associated with it.

January
From the Fulda Sacramentary
French (Corvey), c. 960-1000
Munich, Bayerisches Staatsbibliothek
MS Clm 10077, fol. 219

January
From the Munich Golden Psalter
English (Oxford), c. 1200-1225
Munich, Bayerisches Staatsbibliothek
MS Clm 835, fol. 1

The activity associated with the month of January should come as no surprise. It is feasting. In the twenty-first century we still practice this, but we have displaced the feasting from its correct place in the calendar. In the middle ages, the celebration of Christmas took about the same amount of time as it does now. However, they began their celebration on Christmas Eve and carried it through to the feast of the Purification on February 2, giving them roughly six weeks of celebration. Today, especially in the United States, with its unique, secular Thanksgiving feast at the end of November, we begin the celebration in late November and end it (more or less) with New Year’s Day on January 1. This is also roughly six weeks of celebration, just displaced. Or, put differently, we celebrate going into the winter solstice and Christmas, they celebrated coming out of these days.

January also carried another charge, more obvious to them than it may be to us. The name of the month itself derives from the name of the Roman god, Janus. Janus is the two-headed god, who looks both ahead and behind and was the god of beginnings and endings and of transitions. Therefore, some of the early images associated with the January calendar pages depicted the two-headed Janus feasting, with both heads. Into one mouth he is putting food and into the other mouth drink.

January Stained Glass Window Panel
Swiss, c. 1170
Lausanne, Cathedral

Ham of Fecamp, January
From a Psalter
French, c. 1180
The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek
MS 76 F 13, fol.1v

Tweede Groep, January
From a Psalter
Flemish (Ghent), c. 1270-1280
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 72, fol. 1r

January
From a Book of Hours
French, c. 1425-1435
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 64, fol. 1r

However, artists soon dropped this sometimes challenging image in favor of showing a man (with a single head and mouth) eating in front of a good fire.

January
From a Church Calendar Leaves Album
Flemish (Liege), c. 1245-1255
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 908.1, fol. 1v

January
From a Psalter
English (Winchester), c. 1295-1305
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS G 19, fol. 1r

January
From a Book of Hours
French (Rouen), c. 1475-1500
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS G 4, fol. 2r

Jean Colombe, January
From a Book of Hours
French (Bourges), c. 1465-1470
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 248, fol. 1r

Other images began to appear as well. One that is especially easy for those of us who live in the northern climate to appreciate is the motif of the man seated before the fire warming his cold feet. In these little pictures showing him removing his boots and stretching out his cold feet and hands we can find a good deal of resonance as we cozy up to our own radiators and heaters or wrap our hands around a warm mug of coffee, tea or cocoa.

January
From a Psalter
French (Therouanne), c. 1260-1270
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 97, fol. 1r

Egerton Master, January
From a Book of Hours
French (Paris), c. 1410-1425
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 919, fol. 1r

Initially, the man was depicted alone by the fire. Over time, however, other figures began to be added to the scene. Servants were shown bringing food or drink or extra logs for the fire.

January
From a Book of Hours
French (Paris), c. 1470-1480
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS S 5, fol. 2r

Master of the Morgan 366, January
From a Book of Hours
French (Tours), c. 1465-1475
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 366, fol. 5r

Master of the Rouen Echevinage, January
From a Book of Hours
French (Rouen), c. 1470-1480
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 312, fol. 1r

January
From a Book of Hours
French (Rouen),. c. 1485-1495
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 202, fol. 1e

Friends shared the table.

Master of the Rouen Echevinage, January
From a Book of Hours
French (Rouen), c. 1475-1485
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 131, fol. 1r

Eventually, by the end of the fifteenth century women began to appear both as servants and as family members.

Jean Colombe and Workshop, January
From the Hours of Anne of France
French (Bourges), c. 1470-1480
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 677, fol. 1r

Georges Trubert, January
From a Book of Hours
French (Avignon), c. 1480-1495
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 348, fol. 94

January
From a Book of Hours
Flemish, c. 1485-1495
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS S 7, fol. 1r

Master of Spencer 6, January
From a Book of Hours
French (Langres), c. 1495-1505
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 271, fol. 1r

January
From a Breviary
French, c. 1506-1516
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 8, fol. 1r

By the early sixteenth century the entire family has assembled, including the dog and the cat.

Gerard Horenbout, January
From the Grimani Breviary
Flemish, c. 1510-1520
Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana
MS Lat I 99

Simon Bening, January
From the Da Costa Hours
Flemish (Bruges), c. 1510-1520
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 399, fol. 2v

Follower of the Master of Petrarch's Triumphs, January
From a Book of Hours
French (Paris), c. 1515-1525
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 632, fol. 1r

Simon Bening, January
From a Book of Hours
Flemish (Bruges), c. 1515-1525
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 307, fol. 1v

Also, toward the end of the fifteenth century, these interior scenes begin to share space with glimpses of the world outside the house and of the activities associated with it. For January, the principle outdoor activity is directed toward the goal of keeping the interior warm, for example chopping wood and carrying it home.

January
From a Book of Hours
Flemish, c. 1485-1495
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS S7, fol. 1v

Master of James IV of Scotland, January
From the Breviary of Eleanor of Portugal
Flemish (Bruges), c. 1495-1505
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 52, fol. 2r

Jean Poyer, January
From the Hours of Henry VIII
French (Tours), c. 1495-1505
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS H8, fol. 1r

February

Especially at the beginning of the medieval period February has a similar iconography, but with a slightly different pitch. The feasting that was so prominent in January has been replaced by two images in the early calendars.

The first is of the feast of the Purification or Candlemas, which is celebrated on February 2. It commemorates the double event of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple and the purification of Mary, the ritual cleansing rite that Jewish women were required to undergo after childbirth. By tradition candles are brought to church and blessed by the priests. And many of the calendar pages feature small images of women holding one or more candles. Later men also appear with candles.

February
From a Psalter
Flemish (Bruges), c. 1250-1300
London, The British Library
MS Royal 2 B III, fol. 2v

Eerste Groep, February
From a Psalter
Flemish (Bruges), c. 1255-1256
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 106, fol. 1v

Tweede Groep, February
From a Psalter
Flemish (Ghent), c. 1270-1280
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 72, fol. 1v

February
From a Psalter and Book of Hours
French (St. Omer), 1276
London, The British Library
MS Yates Thompson 43, fol. 2v

Laurentius, February
From a Missal
Flemish (Antwerp), c. 1350-1366
The Hague,The Meermano Museum
MS MMW 10 A 14, 1v

February
From the Egmont Breviary
Dutch (Utrecht), c. 1435-1445
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 87, fol. 5v

But, by far, the greater number of images of February are of people, first men, and later men and women, keeping warm by the fireside. They hold out their cold feet and hands to the fire and lift up the skirts of their gowns to draw the heat up the entire span of their legs.

February
Swiss, c. 1170
Lausanne, Cathedral

Ham of Fecamp, February
From a Psalter
French, c. 1180
The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek
MS 76 F 13, fol. 2v

February
From the Shaftesbury Psalter
English, c. 1225-1250
London, The British Library
MS Lansdowne 383, fol. 3v

February
From a Psalter
English (Reading), c. 1245-1255
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M103, fol. 4v
Interesting proof that the stirrup pant is not a modern invention!

February
From a Psalter
English (Winchester), c. 1295-1305
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS G 19, fol. 1v

Note the depiction of the right foot outside the pictorial space. Rather than accept the limitations of the frame this artist depicts it as superimposed on the scene. It is not a window into reality, but an imposition upon it.

February
From the Queen Mary Psalter
English (London), c. 1310-1320
London, The British Library
MS Royal 2 B VII, fol. 72v

This rather unusual scene of a lord being assisted in dressing before a fire offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of fourteenth-century people. And, anyone who has ever had to get dressed in a cold room can appreciate the need for the blazing fire.

Master of Morgan 453, February
From a Book of Hours
French (Paris), c. 1420-1435
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 453, fol. 2v

February
From a Book of Hours
French, c. 1425-1435
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 64, fol. 2r

February
From a Book of Hours
French (Anjou), c. 1435-1445
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 157, fol. 3r

Courting Scene, February
From a Book of Hours
French (Paris), c. 1470-1480
NY, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS S 5, fol. .3r

This courting scene used as an activity for the month of February reminds us that it is around this time that February 14, the feast of St. Valentine, became associated with courtship and love.

February
English (Norwich), c. 1500-1520
London, The Victoria and Albert Museum

Georges Trubert, February
From a Book of Hours
French (Avignon), c. 1480-1495
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 348, fol. 10v

Jean Poyer, February
From the Hours of Henry VIII
French (Tours), c. 1495-1505
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS H 8, fol. 1v

February
From Meditations and Church Services
German, 1507
London, The British Library
MS Egerton 2076, fol. 2

Toward the beginning of the fifteenth century one of the most extraordinary images of February appeared in the great calendar page from the Tres Riches Heures of the Duke de Berry, painted by the Limbourg Brothers. This image shows us not only the folks by the fire, but the outdoor activity of a manor in a snowy corner of France. We see the distant town toward which a man is driving a donkey struggling under a load of wood. In the middle ground another man is busy chopping down saplings for additional fuel. In the farmyard, the sheep are safely pinned and under cover, the beehives are heaped up with snow, the pigeons and other native birds feast on some scattered grain and a dairy maid blows on her shawled hands as she plods through the snow in very practical boots. We find ourselves looking at a world that is startlingly like our own.

The Limbourg Brothers, February
From the Tres Riches Heures of Jean, Duke de Berry
Flemish, c. 1412-1416
Chantilly, Musée Condé
MS 65, fol. 2v

This had a huge effect on some of the miniature painters who followed the Limbourgs. Prior to their work hardly any images had shown any winter activities outside the house. A few images did exist, primarily as sculptural decorations on church doors or occasionally in manuscripts. Generically called "the Labors of the Months" they showed figures participating in whatever agricultural activity suited that month.

January
Italian, c. 1250
Venice, Basilica of St. Mark

February
Italian, c. 1250
Venice, Basilica of St. Mark

February
From the Psalter of Lambert le Begue
Flemish (Liege), c. 1255-1265
London, The British Library
MS Additional 21114, fol. 1v

February
From a Breviary
French (Cambrai), c. 1275-1300
The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek
MS KB 76 J 18, fol. 210v

In this image, the artist shows us not only a "Labor of the Month", but also a clever reference to the zodiacal sign for February, the twin fish of Pisces.

Luca della Robbia, January

Italian, c. 1450-1456

London, Victoria and Albert Museum

Luca della Robbia, February
Italian, c. 1450-1460
London, The Victoria and Albert Museum

Fishing in February
From The Queen Mary Psalter
English (London), c. 1310-1320
London, The British Library
MS Royal 2 B VII, fol. 73

Not only is this a reference to winter fishing, but the fish are actually the symbol of Pisces, February's sign of the zodiac.

After the work of the Limbourgs this kind of image became much more frequent. The fireside only scenes continued, of course, but they were joined by many more showing such scenes as workers pruning trees, preparing the ground for sowing, cutting and hauling wood. Occasionally, the two motifs are combined, with scenes of people warming themselves by the fire outdoors.

February
From a Book of Hours
French (Paris), c. 1415-1425
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 1000, fol. 2r

February
From the Hours of Charlotte of Savoy
French (Paris), c. 1415-1430
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 1004, fol. 1v

February
From the Dunois Hours
French (Paris), c. 1440-1450
London, The British Library
MS Yates Thompson 3, fol. 2

The Master of the Lee Hours, February
From a Book of Hours
Flemish (Ghent), c. 1450-1455
Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum
MS 2, fol. 2 r

February
From a Book of Hours
Flemish (Bruges), c. 1465-1475
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 285, fol. 2r

Jean Colombe and Workshop, February
From a Book of Hours
French (Bourges), c. 1465-1470
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 248, fol. 2r

February
From a Book of Hours
French (Rouen), c. 1475-1500
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS G 4, fol. 3r

February, Cutting Firewood
From a Book of Hours
Flemish, c. 1485-1495
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS S 7, fol. 2r

The action in this picture is continued on the next leaf (below).

February, Bringing the Cut Wood Home
From a Book of Hours
Flemish, c. 1485-1495
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS S 7, fol. 3r

February
From a Book of Hours
Flemish, c. 1500
London, The British Library
MS King's 9, fol. 3v-4
This Book of Hours contains inscriptions by Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII.

February
From a Book of Hours
German (Strasbourg), Early 16th Century
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum
MS Ludwig IX 16, fol. 2r

The Renaissance and Baroque (1500-1800)

January

For whatever reason, the sixteenth century was a time of change for the depiction of the months. No longer was the focus for the month of January solely feasting by the fire, although such pictures did continue to be created. Instead, artists began to study and depict the wintry landscape, with its snow and leafless trees, and the human actors moving within it. Initially glimpsed as a landscape outside the house in the manner of the Limbourg Brothers, the landscape itself soon became the dominant subject of the painting. And, while the Labors of the Months continued to hold some place, some of the “labors” became more akin to what we would call pastimes, such as ice skating. Such activities were probably not depicted until now because they were not considered worthy of recording.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow (January)
Flemish, 1565
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum

Etienne Delaune, January
French, c. 1570
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Leandro Bassano, January
Italian, c. 1595-1600
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum

In spite of the modernity of this image, it still retains a reference to the older tradition by placing the zodiacal symbol for January, Aquarius, in the sky.

Some of these winter landscapes make reference to a Biblical event associated with the month, the Flight into Egypt.

Abel Grimmer, January, Landscape with the Flight into Egypt
Flemish, c. 1600
Private Collection

Joos de Momper, Winter Landscape with the Flight into Egypt
Flemish, c.1620-1630
Private Collection

Jan Gerritsz Swelinck, January with Flight into Egypt
Dutch, c. 1624-1645
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

But the majority, growing ever less religious, concentrated attention on the effects of the cold weather on the natural and human worlds.

Sebastian Vrancx, January
Flemish, c. 1620-1630
Budapest, Szépmûvészeti Múzeum

Joos de Momper, Winter Landscape
Flemish, c.1620-1630
Private Collection

Pierre Antoine Patel, January, Snow Effect
French, c. 1680-1700
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Cornelis Dusart, January, Twelfth Night
Dutch, c. 1675-1704
London, The British Museum

Caspar Luyken, January
Dutch, c. 1698-1702
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

February

February followed a similar pattern. However, because by late February winter begins to abate, the medieval Labors often included scenes such as pruning and digging, the difference is not quite so stark. In the Renaissance and Baroque periods February also included some of the more lighthearted activities such as skating, but the focus was more weighted toward the agricultural activities that had medieval precedents.

Master of James IV of Scotland, February
From the Breviary of Eleanor of Portugal
Flemish (Bruges), c. 1495-1515
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 52, fol. 2v

February
From a Book of Hours
Dutch, c. 1500-1525
The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek
MS KB 133 D 11, fol. 3r

Gerard Horenbout, February
From the Grimani Breviary
Flemish, c. 1510-1520
Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana
Horenbout's debt to the Limbourg Brothers is obvious.

Simon Bening, February
From the Da Costa Hours
Flemish (Bruges), c. 1510-1520
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 399, fol. 3v

Simon Bening, February
From a Book of Hours
Flemish (Bruges), c. 1515-1525
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
MS M 307, fol. 2r

Master of the Getty Epistles, February
From a Book of Hours
French (Tours), c. 1525-1540
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 452, fol. 3r

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, A Gloomy Day (February)
Flemish, 1565
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum

Etienne Delaune, February
French, After 1568
Philadelphia, Museum of Art

February
French, Late 16th Century
Philadelphia, Museum of Art

February
Italian (Venetian), c. 1580
London, The National Gallery

Lucas van Valckenborch the Elder, Winter Landscape in a Snowstorm
Dutch, 1586
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum

Joos de Momper, Dorf in Winter
Flemish, c. 1600
Hamburg, Kunsthalle

Leaonard Gaultier, February
French, c. 1600
Philadelphia, Museum of Art

Abel Grimmer, Month of February or Winter
Flemish, c 1604-1606
Private Collection

Jan van de Velde the Younger, February
From a series of The Months
Dutch, 1616
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts

February has the additional connotation of being the usual start for the season of Lent. Thus, the theme of carnival, the time of frivolity in the days leading up to Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, that was common in Catholic countries plays a role in some of the landscapes.

Leandro Bassano, Februry
Italian, c. 1595-1600
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum

Antonio Tempesta, February, A Carnival Tournament
Italian, 1599
Philadelphia, Museum of Art

Joos de Momper_February
Flemish, c. 1600
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

Aegidius Sadeler the Younger After Pieter Stevens, February-Carnival
Flemish, 1607
Philadelphia, Museum of Art

Cornelis Dusart, February
From the 12 Months of the Year
Dutch, c. 1680-1690
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts

Nor was the theme of romantic love, associated with the feast of St. Valentine on February 14 by the fourteenth century, neglected.

February Torch Dance
Flemish, c. 1650
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum

Francois Boucher, The Four Seasons: Winter
French, 1755
New York, Frick Collection

And, our old friends from January, eating and keeping warm, were not entirely neglected either.

Francisco Barrera, February, Winter Still Life
Spanish, 1640
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

Hendrick Bloemaert, Old Man Warming His Hands
Flemish, 1631
Private Collection

Joachim von Sandrart, February
German, 1642
Schleissheim, Staatsgalerie

Gradually, the distinction between the two winter months faded into an almost generic depiction of "Winter". These paintings of the Baroque and later periods depict mainly landscapes and winter sports and have abandoned the old tie to the liturgical calendar for a new seasonal approach to nature.

Hendrick Avercamp, Skating on a Frozen River
Dutch, c. 1608
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

Klaes Molenaer, Winter
Dutch, c. 1660-1670
Private Collection

Aert van der Neer, Sports on a Frozen River
Dutch, c. 1660
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jacques de la Joue the Younger, Allegory of Winter
French, c. 1730-1740
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

"Winter": The Post-Baroque (1800-2018)

In the period from the mid-eighteenth century to the present the seasonal landscape has dominated. The mysterious effects of snow and ice have continued to intrigue painters.

Caspar David Friedrich, Winter

German, 1811

London, National Gallery

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, Winter Landscape, Holland
Dutch, 1833
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Henry Farrer, Winter Scene in Moonlight
American, 1869
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude Monet, Boulevard Saint-Denis, Argenteuil, in Winter
French, 1875
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts

Leon-Germain Pelouse, January:Cernay, near Rambouillet
French, c. 1887
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Alfred Sisley, Rue Eugene Moussoir at Moret: Winter
English, 1891
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude Monet, Ice Floes
French, 1893
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

George Bellows, Blue Snow, the Battery
American, 1910
Columbus (OH), Museum of Art

Ernest Lawson, Winter
American, 1914
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

It would appear that almost all ties to the old calendar pages have been obliterated, except, of course, that nature has not changed. Winter is still winter and during the season we still do the same things that our ancestors did. We sit at home in the warmth, we perhaps overindulge in food and drink, we do what chores are required of us in the outside world (though these may no longer involve tillage and pruning).

George Henry Durrie, Red School House
American, 1858
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Camille Bernier, Janvier, Bretagne
French, c. 1872
Paris, Musée d'Orsay

Childe Hassam, Winter in Union Square
American, c.1889-1890
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

When we can, if we can, we also participate in outdoor sports.

Currier and Ives After Charles Parsons, Central Park, Winter-The Skating Pond
American, 1862
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Currier and Ives, Central Park in Winter
American, c. 1877-1894
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

William James Glackens, Central Park, Winter
American, c. 1905
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

George Bellows, Love of Winter
American, 1914
Chicago, Art Institute

Some take their interest in winter sports to great lengths and, every four years, the winter athletes of the world participate in one of the grandest winter spectacles of all, the Winter Olympics. This competitive seeking of excellence in outdoor activities may be the greatest difference between our day and the days of our ancestors.

Of course, for the rest of us, we sit at home keeping warm and watch, not the dancing flames of the fire, but the performance of these hardy men and women on our screens.

Or, instead of watching the screen, we may read a book, peruse a magazine or write a letter, in the company of our dog or cat.

Joseph J. Gould, February
American, 1896
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

(Notice that the wallpaper is sprinkled with hearts for Valentine's Day)

Edward Penfield, February
American, 1898
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

So perhaps things aren’t really so different for most of us after all.

Wharton H. Esherick, Trudging in the Snow (January)
American ,1922
Philadelphia, Museum of Art

Snow Time -- S'No Time To Be Outside

2026-01-26T01:40:00.002-05:00

The Limbourg Brothers, February
From the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
Dutch, c. 1412-1416
Chantilly, Musée Condé
MS 65, fol. 2v

Over the last few days, most of the United States has experienced snow, the sole exceptions being in the West. Snow has even fallen in parts of the deep south that seldom see snow. So, for all of us, from the northern midwest to the deep south to the northeast, I thought it would be fun to republish this 2015 look at the iconography of snow in western European art from the middle ages to the twentieth century. So, make yourself a cup of hot chocolate, coffee or tea and enjoy!

Last night, with the entire East Coast hunkered down for a strong nor’easter and heavy snow, I couldn’t resist stepping a bit outside my normal iconographic concerns to prepare some observations on the art of the snow scene.

From my windows today I can see the roofs of Manhattan covered in the white stuff, the pine trees planted on some penthouses as picturesque as in any Alpine scene. I am grateful that, for us at least, it wasn’t heavier and sorry for those who took the full brunt of the storm.

With nowhere to go, since transportation is still limited, and with the power off in some locations, we find our twenty-first century selves thrown back – almost – to an earlier world, sharing with our ancestors the beauty and the disruption of snow.

The first snow scene we are aware of is the amazingly detailed and very charming one produced by the Limbourg Brothers (Jean, Herman and Paul) for the February calendar page of the Tres Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry, produced around 1415.

Traditionally, the February calendar page in Books of Hours showed the activity of the month to consist either of keeping warm in front of a fire, eating beside it (same as January) or of chopping twigs in a snowless landscape, often combined with the fishes that are the astrological sign of Pisces.

* February
From a Psalter
French (Northern), c. 1210
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 238, fol. 1v

February
From a Breviary
French (Paris), c. 1345-`355
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
MS M 75, fol. 1v

The Limbourgs do present the warming scene and the astrological reference, but then devote the largest portion of the page to what is happening beyond the house.

Limbourg Brothers, February (detail)
From the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
Dutch, c. 1412-1416
Chantilly, Musée Condé
MS 65, fol. 2v (detail)

They show the sheep penned up in their fold to keep them warm and safe, the snow covered bee hives, the pigeons and other birds, possibly starlings, feeding on some scattered grain. On the far right a woman worker, her skirts hiked up above her knees, showing the very practical boots she is wearing, hurries to get indoors as she breathes on her cold hands which are covered by the shawl she is wearing over her head and upper body. She is the very picture of shivering cold.

Beyond the woven wall that surrounds the farmyard a man with an ax is chopping at a tree, presumably for more firewood. Another man drives a donkey, with panniers laden with what looks like logs, past snow covered hay stacks toward a distantly seen town. For a first image it is a strikingly successful rendering of the visual and emotional effects of winter snows and cold.

Snow scenes remained a special field for northern painters, from the Low Countries, Germany and France, through the centuries, spreading later to America. Mostly the scenes are simple landscapes, showing the effect of snow on the natural world, or scenes of daily human activities in the snow.

Jean Bourdichon, January
From the Grandes Heures d'Anne de Bretagne
French, c. 1503-1508
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 9474, fol. 4

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow
Flemish, 1565
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum

Denis van Alsloot, Winter Landscape
Flemish, 1610
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Joos de Momper, Winter Landscape with Wagon
Flemish, c. 1620
Private Collection

Jacob van Ruysdael, Winter
Dutch, 1670
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

Caspar David Friedrich, Winter
German, 1811
London, National Gallery

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, Winter
Dutch, 1838
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

Johannes Cornelis Hoppenbrouwers, Winter Landscape
Dutch, 1854
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

George Henry Boughton, Winter Twilight Near Albany
American, c. 1859-1869
New York, New York Historical Society

Thomas Hiram Hotchkiss, Catskill Winter

American, 1858

New York, New York Historical Society

Henry Farrer, Moonlight in Winter
American, 1869
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Claude Monet, Cart on the Snowy Road at Honfleur
French, 1865
Paris, Musée d'Orsay

Claude Monet, Snow at Argenteuil
French, 1874
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts

Claude Monet, Haystacks (Effect of Snow and Sun)
French, 1891
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Alfred Sisley, Rue Moussoir at Moret: Winter
English, 1891
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Paul Gauguin, Garden in Winter, Rue Carcel
French, 1883
Private Collection

Childe Hassam, Winter, Union Square
American, c. 1889-1890
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

George Bellows, Blue Snow, the Battery
American, 1910
Columbus, Museum of Art

Many feature the effect of snow and ice on the human sense of fun, showing people enjoying the frozen rivers and ponds in the same way we do today: by strapping on a pair of ice skates, sledding, playing games or flirting.

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Winter Landscape with Skaters and a Bird Trap
Belgian, 1565
Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts

Hendrick Avercamp, A Scene on the Ice
Dutch, 1625
Washington, National Gallery of Art

Aert van der Neer, Sports on a Frozen River
Dutch, c. 1660
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Vincent van der Vinne, Winter Landscape with Skaters on a Frozen Canal
Dutch, Undated (lived 1736-1811)
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Francois Boucher, Winter
French, 1755
New York, Frick Collection

Currier and Ives, Central Park in Winter
American, c. 1877-1894
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

George Bellows, Love of Winter
American, 1914
Chicago, Art Institute

Religious Scenes

A handful of paintings make the snow a backdrop for religious storytelling,

Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Census at Bethlehem
Belgian, 1566
Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts

Almost unnoticed amid the busy scene is the donkey carrying Mary led by Joseph.

Joos de Momper, Winter Landscape with Flight into Egypt
Flemish, Undated (lived 1564-1634)
Private Collection

As with the Brueghel painting, the flight of the Holy Family goes virtually unnoticed at the bottom left.

History Painting

George Henry Boughton, Pilgrims Going to Church
American, 1867
New York, New York Historical Society

Emanuel Leutze, Washington Crossing the Delaware

American, 1851

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Allegory

Antoine Caron, The Triumph of Winter
French, c. 1568
Private Collection

In this interesting painting the French Mannerist Antoine Caron presents an allegorical fantasy, a pageant of the Triumph of Winter taking place along the banks of the Seine in Paris, opposite the Tuileries. Winter sits on the triumphal car drawn by cranes at the right. Preceding him is a procession of the pagan gods led by Janus and including Apollo, Mercury, Diana, Mars, Vulcan's three assistants and finally Vulcan himself. They are heading for a small, round temple which appears to project into the Seine and are watched by citizens on both sides of the river as well as from boats on it. The finely observed footprints in the snow suggest careful study of the reality of snow's physical effects. One hopes, however, that this is a work of Caron's imagination or, if not, that the participants didn't die of frostbite!

Jacques de la Joue the Younger, Allegory of Winter
French, c. 1740
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Much as we do with our own snow photographs the pictures tend to focus on the after effects of the storm, not on its fury. Snow time's s’no time to be out in it, but after the snow has passed it is the time to observe, admire and have some fun.

©M. Duffy, 2015. * New image added 2025.

Peter's Mother-in-Law Is Healed

2026-01-20T18:58:00.004-05:00

Adriaen Collaert, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From Vita Iesu Salvatoris varijs iconibus ab Adriano Collaert
expressa
Flemish, c. 1580-1590
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

" On leaving the synagogue
Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.
Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever.
They immediately told him about her.
He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.
Then the fever left her and she waited on them."

Mark 1:29-31

Part of the Gospel for Wednesday of the First Week of Ordinary Time, Weekday Cycle 2

In the period directly following his baptism in the Jordan at the hands of John the Baptist Jesus performed some actions that are foundational for his earthly ministry. He began to collect disciples, he began to perform miracles of healing and community and he began to preach in the local synagogues, Among those actions are some that appear to have close family connections. At Cana, he accepts the prodding of his mother to perform a public miracle and, in the town of Capernaum he heals the mother-in-law of one of his recently chosen disciples.

As we learn from the beginning of the Gospel reading above, Simon and his brother Andrew appear to be living with their families in a communal, family house, a not uncommon situation in history, provided the family had sufficient space. They receive a visit from Jesus, who brings with him the other pair of recently recruited disciples who are brothers, James and John. In some traditions this latter set of brothers are, in fact, members of Jesus' own extended family. They are thought to be the cousins of Jesus, children of an aunt, one of the Virgin Mary's sisters. For more about this possible connection, see my article about the Holy Kindred tradition and its iconography.

At the time of Jesus' visit Peter's mother-in-law, who also lives with them, is ill with a fever. She was obviously a well-regarded member of the household of Peter and Andrew for two reasons. First, her son-in-law mentions her condition to his new friend. So, her absence is noted and Peter feels it necessary to explain it, possibly in the hope that this very powerful friend may be able to help. And, second, when Jesus does heal her, she immediately gets up and takes charge again, suggesting that she was really the person who ran the household.

This is the only time that we hear about the members of any family members of Christ's disciples. We can imagine any kind of scenario for their lives, and throughout history many people have imagined many different arrangements. But none of them have any foundation in Scripture. Therefore, the one thing we can say with Biblical certainty about the apostles is that Peter was a married man when he began to follow Jesus. We know nothing about his wife, nor about their marriage, nor about their children if there were any. The suggestion that a young woman mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles may be Peter's daughter cannot be proved either way. Nothing at all is known about Peter's wife. We don't know if she was alive or dead at the time of the meeting of Peter with Jesus. We don't know, we don't know, we don't know...

Visual Storytelling

The Early Middle Ages

With so little written material available about the details of the earliest miracles of Jesus, artists were free to devise images that told the story in the most understandable way possible.

I did not expect to find a large amount of visual material for this subject and I did not. However, I found more than I expected to and it was spread over a longer period than I had anticipated as well.

Although I wasn't able to locate any images from the first one thousand years of Christianity, I did find a surprising number from the second Christian millennium, beginning in the middle of the tenth century with the work of the Reichenau monastery scriptorium such, as the Codex Egberti. In addition, the Byzantine mosaic tradition offers a similar line of images.

The Gregory Master and Workshop, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From the Codex Egberti
German (Reichenau), c. 980-993
Trier, Stadtbibliothek_
MS 24, fol. 22v

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From the Gospels of Otto III
German (Reichenau), c. 1000
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
MS Clm 4453, fol. 149v (detail)

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Byzantine (Sicily), c. 1189
Monreale, Cathedral of the Assumption

Toros Roslin, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From the T'oros Roslin Gospels
Armenian, 1262
Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum
MS W 539, fol. 39v

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Byzantine (Laconia), 14th Century
Mystras, Church of the Virgin Hodegetria
Photo: University of Bologna

Mosaic of the Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Byzantine, c. 1316-1321
Istanbul, Church of Our Savior in Chora

The Later Middle Ages and Beyond

The image of the healing of Peter's mother-in-law continued to be utilized in illustrations of the New Testament throughout the later Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, Baroque and later periods, right up to the end of the nineteenth century.

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Austrian, c. 1349-1351
The Institute of the Material Culture of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period
Austria - CC BY-NC-ND

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From a Book of New Testament Illustrations
German (Upper Rhine), c. 1425-1435
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 720, fol. 3r

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From a Book of Gospels
Moravian, c. 1430
Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek
MS Cod. 485, fol. Vienna, 17r

Phillips Galle, Visiting the Sick/The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Flemish, 1577
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

This image uses the story of Jesus' healing of Peter's wife's mother to represent one of the corporal works of mercy, Visiting the Sick.

Johannes Wierix after a design by Bernardino Passeri, Jesus Heals Peter's Mother-in-Law
Flemish, 1593
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

Denys Calvaert, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
French, First Quarter of the 17th Century
Paris, Church of Saint Jacques du Haut Pas

Claude Vignon, Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
French, c. 1639-1643
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

Giovanni Maria Mariani, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Italian, c. 1655-1656
Rome, Hospital of the Holy Spirit

Jacques Pajou the Younger, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
French, 1790
Paris, Hospital Saint-Louis-de-la-Salpêtrière, Chapel of Saint Vincent de Paul'

Johannes Pieter de Frey, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Dutch, 1797
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

It was one of these later images of the healing of Saint Peter's mother-in-law that was chosen as one of the illustrations for the beautiful copy of the Bible purchased by my parents when I was about four years old and which formed part of the pathway that led me, through pictures and later through words, into a lifelong interest in the Holy Bible and its message, of the Church and of the God we worship.

James Tissot, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
French, c. 1886-1894
New York, Brooklyn Museum

J© M. Duffy, 2026

The Wise Men Receive a Warning

2026-01-06T00:27:00.235-05:00

The Dream of the Magi
From a Psalter
English (Oxford), c. 1200-1225
London, British Library
MS Royal 1 D. X, fol. 2v

"When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,
in the days of King Herod,
behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,
“Where is the newborn king of the Jews?
We saw his star at its rising
and have come to do him homage.”
When King Herod heard this,
he was greatly troubled,
and all Jerusalem with him.
Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people,
He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea,
for thus it has been written through the prophet:
And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
since from you shall come a ruler,
who is to shepherd my people Israel.”
Then Herod called the magi secretly
and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said,
“Go and search diligently for the child.
When you have found him, bring me word,
that I too may go and do him homage.”
After their audience with the king they set out.
And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,
until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star,
and on entering the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage.
Then they opened their treasures
and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,
they departed for their country by another way."

Matthew 2:1-12

Gospel of the Epiphany

Most contemporary retellings of the Nativity story and most of the Nativity scenes with which we are familiar, whether in church or at home or in some public place, tend to show us a strange, forced image. We immediately see the Holy Family: Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus in the crib. We see the ox and ass and the shepherds and their sheep. And there are angels too. But there are also the Three Wise Men or Magi. All are usually grouped together, even though it is obvious from the Gospels and from the arrangement of religious feast days within the season of Christmas that a considerable amount of time may have passed between the night of Christ's birth and the arrival of the mysterious strangers from the East.

Some churches do try to reinforce the idea of the passage of time by not introducing the Wise Men until the actual feast of the Epiphany. They do not place them in the crib area at Christmas itself, but at some far distance part of the church, gradually moving them nearer as more than a week passes between Christmas Day and Epiphany. Of course, in some years there is such a short time between the feast of Mary, Mother of God on January 1 and the Sunday of the Epiphany that the Wise Men figures arrive only to be removed a day or so later. (This year of 2026 is one such.)

Because of this squeezing of the story into a tiny time span there is often no time to focus on the story of the Wise Men, indeed there is barely enough time to realize that they are there. So, their story is, of necessity, stripped down to the most basic, their adoration of the Christ Child. Consequently, we have lost the story of their notice of the star, their journey following it, their visit to Jerusalem and meeting with Herod. In addition, we fail to notice the passage that ends their story in the Gospels, their dreams, in which an angel warns them (just as he also warns Joseph) that Herod means harm to them and to the Child, after which "they departed for their country by another way" (Matthew 2:12).

To my surprise, this lack of visual representation for this end of their story is not new, however. It had been a popular image for centuries during the Middle Ages, but seems to have disappeared entirely after about 1550 in both the Catholic and the Protestant countries of Europe. Why this should be is puzzling, considering the impeccable Biblical source. The only controversial element might be the presence of an angel, but other angels appear in other stories and those continued to be depicted in art. So far I have not found any rational explanation but will keep alert to possible answers.

The Dream of the Magi in Art

Medieval Period to 1200

I have not yet found any images of this passage from the earliest Christian eras. The earliest one I have found comes from the Carolingian court in 8th Century Europe. I appears on the end of the top of an ivory box that was decorated with images of the infancy of Jesus. The subject is depicted, as most of the subsequent images will be, as if seen from above. The three "kings" lie across the visual field. They are shown in varied poses that indicate sleep or interrupted sleep, wrapped up in their cloaks and wearing beehive crowns that are close to the headgear of the popes at the time. At their feet an angel, who is holding a staff topped with what might be a lily, makes a gesture of warning. That such a precious and delicate object has managed to survive nearly 1200 years is quite miraculous.

The Dream of the Magi
From an Ivory Coffret Decorated with Scenes from the Infancy of Christ
German (Metz), c. 870-880
Paris,Musée du Louvre, Département des Objets d'art du Moyen Age, de la Renaissance et des temps modernes

At about the same time a very similar image was being painted for a Greek New Testament in Constantinople. The image has been quite abraided over time, but is still very legible.

The Dream of the Magi (far right)
From the Orationes of Gregory Nazianzus
Byzantine (Constantinople), c. 879-882
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Grec 510, fol. 137r detail

In a few hundred years later the image recurs in an Italian manuscript. Here the oldest of the kings is the only one who seems to have a comfortable bed. The two younger men appear to be sleeping with little underneath them and nothing covering them either. This is emphasized by the artist, who shows the cross banded stockings covering their legs from angle to knee.

The Dream of the Magi
From the Gospels of Matilda, Countess of Tuscany
Italian (Tuscany), c. 1075-1099
New York, Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 492, fol. 20vb

At about the same time a Anglo-Saxon painter depicted the three, wrapped up in their cloaks, and lying on the ground, while an angel leans over them to declare the warning.

The Dream of the Magi
From the Sacramentary of Robert of Jumieges
English, 11th Century
Rouen, Bibliotheque municipale
MS 9, fol. 37r

So far, all these Magi seem to have been lying on the ground, but a few decades later an English artist depicted the three men lying in a single bed, each wrapped in his own cloak, but with their heads resting on elaborately decorated pillows. Meanwhile, an angel, without a staff in hand, touches the arm of the nearest man and gestures to deliver his warning.

The Dream of the Magi
From the Saint Albans Psalter (Psalter of Cristina of Markyate)
English (Abbey of Saint Alban's), First Half of 12th Century
Hildesheim, Dombibliothek
Page 26

Around the year 1120 the sculptor Gislebertus created what is probably the best known and most influential image of the Dream of the Magi as a capital of a column at the Cathedral of Saint-Lazare in the town of Autun. The three Magi lie together, covered by a single, amazing quilt. It appears to be circular and pleated or perhaps quilted in a linear pattern and has a deep decorative border. Each sleeping king is shown crowned and rests his head on a single pillow. Meanwhile, the angel hovers above them, with his left hand pointing to the star, while with a precise and extremely delicate gesture, he touches one finger to the uncovered hand of one of the Magi. It is a memorable image and the many variations on the theme in very different media suggest that it did not go unnoticed in the years after he produced it.

Gislebertus, The Dream of the Magi
French, c. 1120-1130
Autun, Cathedral of Saint-Lazare

Later Medieval Works to the End of the Thirteenth Century

Later medieval artists produced not only variations on the theme of the Autun capital, but other arrangements as well. In some the Magi lie together in one bed, in others they lie separately, in still others they sit, resting their heads on there hands. These appear predominantly in manuscripts but there are also images in stained glass and in sculpture.

The Story of the Magi
From a Lectionary
English (Canterbury), c. 1140
London, British Library
MS Add. 37422, No. 1, f. 1

This image is a fragment of a full page detailing all parts of the Nativity story. This fragment contains the story of the Magi from their meeting with Herod, to their journey to Bethlehem, to adoring the Christ Child to their dream. The last two images are the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple and Saint Joseph's Warning Dream to leave for Egypt.

The Dream of the Magi
From the Window of the Life of Christ
French, c. 1150
Chartres, Cathedral de Notre-Dame

The Dream of the Magi
French, c. 1170-1180
Arles, Church of Saint-Trophime, Facade

The Adoration of the Child Jesus and the Dream of the Magi
From the Canterbury Psalter
English (Canterbury), c. 1176-1200
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 8846, fol. 4v.detail

The Dream of the Magi
From a Psalter
English (Oxford), c. 1200-1225
London, British Library
MS Arundel 157, fol. 14v

The Dream of the Magi
From the Munich Golden Psalter
English, c. 1200-1225
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
MS Clm 835, fol. 23r

Presumably this image and the one above it were produced in the same workshop at the same time for different patrons.

The Dream of the Magi
From Canterbury Cathedral
English, Late 12th-Early 13th Century
Canterbury, Cathedral of Christ the King

The Magi Are Warned by an Angel
French, 13th Century
Laon, Cathedral of Notre-Dame

The Magi Are Warned by an Angel and Go Home by Sea
From the Speyer Book of Gospels
German (Middle Rhein), c. 1220
Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek
MS Cod. Bruchsal 1, Bl. fol. 11r

The Dream of the Magi
French, c. 1230-1240
Chartres, Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Chapel of Saint Piat

The Dream of the Magi
Right wing of an Altarpiece
Italian, c. 1230
Alatri, Church of Santa Maria Maggiore

The Dream of the Magi
From the Psalter-Hours of Ghuiluys de Blisleux
French (Arras), c. 1246-1260
New York, Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 730, fol. 12r

Coppa di Marcovaldo, The Dream of the Magi
From the 13th Century Maesta
Italian, Second Half of the 13th Century
Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

The Dream of the Magi
Byzantine, c. 1260-1275
Florence, Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, Baptistery
Marcovaldo was a Florentine, was he the creator or the copyist here?

The Magi Meet Herod and Are Warned by an Angel
From the Wenceslaus Psalter
French (Paris), c. 1250-1260
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum
MS Ludwig VIII 4, fol. 23r

The Dream of the Magi
From a Book of Gospels
German (Mainz), c. 1260
Aschaffenburg, Hofbibliothek
MS 13, fol. 19v

The Dream of the Magi
From the Oscott Psalter
English, c. 1265-1270
London, British Library
MS Additional 50000, fol. 9v

The Dream of the Magi
From the Holland Psalter
French, c. 1270-1280
Cambridge (UK), Saint John's College, Old Library
MS K. 26, fol. 9v

The Dream of the Magi
From a Psalter
English (East Anglia), c. 14th Century
Oxford, Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford,
MS Gough Liturg. 8, fol. 22v

Tiny Treasures

Sometimes, manuscript illuminators included tiny images of the dream of the Magi inside the spaces created by certain capital letters, predominantly the initial D from the phrase "Deus in adjutorium meum intende" which opens the prayers of the Hours. The images in these space are often amazingly detailed for their small size.

Atelier of the Master of the Life of Saint-Denis, The Dream of the Magi
From a Missal
French (Paris), c. 1240-1260
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 17319, fol. 41r

The Dream of the Magi
From the Psalter-Hours of Yolande de Soissons
French (Amiens), c. 1280-1299
New York, Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 729, fol. 276r

These images are sometimes absolutely astonishing when viewed up close and are worth looking at as tiny jewels in pages that are already stunning for their beauty and detail. An example is shown below, where the tiny detail contained within the capital letter is only a small part of a page that holds three exquisite small masterpieces. Current advances in photography of the very small allow everyone to discover these little treasures.

Atelier of the Master of the Parement de Narbonne, The Dream of the Magi
From the Tres belles heures de Notre-Dame
French (Paris), c. 1380
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS NAL 3093, fol. 49v (detail)

This is the page from which the image above comes. You can judge for yourself about the effort it took to create such a tiny but detailed image within the confines of a prayer book.

Atelier of the Master of the Parement de Narbonne, The Adoration of the Magi, The Dream of the Magi and the Magi Before Herod
From the Tres belles heures de Notre-Dame
French (Paris), c. 1380
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS NAL 3093, fol. 49v

The Bedford Master and Workshop, The Dream of the Magi
From a Book of Hours
French (Paris), c. 1419-1437
New York, Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 359, fol. 36r

Although not a picture within a capital letter I am including this image here because of its small size.

Berthold Furtmeyr, The Dream of the Magi
From the Salzburg Missal
German, c. 1475-1500
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
MS Clm 15708, fol.63r

The Late Middle Ages to 1500

During the first decade of the fourteenth century, the innovative sculptor Giovanni Pisano made two versions of the story of the Magi, one for the pulpit of the Church of Sant'Andrea in the town of Pistoia and the other for the pulpit of Pisa's Cathedral of the Assumption . In both of these spectacular feats of carving he included a visual telling of the dream of the Magi. The two very similar scenes are cut off from the rest of the story (which includes the story of the Adoration of the Magi and of their retinue) by the dominant figure of the angel who leans over their sleeping forms and wakens them with the commanding gesture to arise and go.

Giovanni Pisano, The Adoration and Dream of the Magi
Italian, c. 1301
Pistoia, Church of Sant'Andrea

Giovanni Pisano, Journey, Adoration and Dream of the Magi
Italian, c. 1302-1311
Pisa, Cathedral of the Assumption

Artists continued to produce pictures of the Dream of the Magi throughout the late Middle Ages, into the sixteenth century.

The Dream of the Magi
From the Queen Mary Psalter
English (London), c. 1310-1320
London, British Library
MS Royal 2 B. VII, fol. 131v

The Adoration of the Magi and the Dream of the Magi
From the Taymouth Hours
English (London), c. 1325-1350
London, British Library
MS Yates Thompson 13, fol. 94v

The Master of Death, The Dream of the Magi
From the Histoire de la Bible et de l'Assomption de Notre Dame
French (Paris), c. 1390-1400
New York, Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 526, fol. 30v

Gerhard Remisch, The Three Magi in Bed Visited by an Angel
German, 16th Century
London, Victoria and Albert Museum

And then, suddenly, sometime between 1500 and 1600 it all seems to have come to an end. So far I have seen no image of the Dream of the Magi that dates from after about 1560, barring a few very modern ones that are clear reworkings of the Gislebertus capital. I find this strange because, although it is a somewhat unusual subject, it is very clearly Biblical, so presumably as acceptable to Protestants as to Catholics. Yet neither side of the religious divide appears to have explored it after the Reformation event.

Johann Sadeler After Gerard van Groeningen, The Dream of the Magi
Flemish, c. 1585
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

An interesting quirk of this image is that, while it is indeed the event called the Dream of the Magi and there are three Magi present, each one is shown in a separate bed and being visited by three angels instead of one. The first is the old Magi, quite visible in the front plane on the right. The two younger men are depicted deeper into the pictorial space, with one in the center of the picture and the third very deep in the space on the upper left, glimpsed between two fluted columns.

Iconography of the Flight into Egypt

2026-01-02T00:43:00.002-05:00

Luc-Olivier Merson, Rest on the Flight into Egypt
French, 1879
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts

Our cultural celebration of the Christmas season has become very truncated in recent decades. Currently, the popular perception of the Nativity stops at the manger scene, with both the shepherds and the Magi in attendance, even though they arrived at different times and probably to different places. This truncation seems to me to have begun in the mid- to late-1980s. Even the liturgy of the Catholic church reflects this. For 2026, for instance, the celebration of the Epiphany (the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus) on Sunday, January 4, will be followed, on January 11, with the commemoration of the Baptism of the Lord, something which happened to the adult Jesus. And that ends the liturgical Christmas season, which once upon a time stretched to February 2nd, the feast of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple.

When I was younger there was a more general knowledge of the entirety of the story that is found in the Gospels, not to mention in pious traditions. However, over the more recent decades we have cut off such important elements as the massacre of the Holy Innocents by Herod and the entire Flight into Egypt and residency there, which once formed such a major portion of the iconography associated with the Nativity of Jesus.

Indeed I have personally overheard puzzled museum goers try to identify what was happening in a painting that was obviously a Massacre of the Holy Innocents (and clearly labeled as such on the wall card next to the painting). The three ladies finally decided that the subject must be a massacre of children in Jerusalem by Crusaders during the Middle Ages! I respectfully intervened to tell them of their mistake and was met by puzzled looks and the objection "Where is that in the Bible?" It's Matthew 2:16-18.

Massacre of the Innocents

The Magi, who after arriving in Jerusalem were invited by Herod to share with him the timing of the appearance of the star that had sent them on their quest, were warned in a dream not to return to Jerusalem but "departed for their country by another way". (Matthew 2:12) For the Magi, see The Wise Men Receive a Warning in this blog..

"When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi." (Matthew 2:16) This event is known as the Massacre of the Innocents (click here).

The Flight into Egypt

But the slaughter failed completely in its objective because God had other plans. An angel warned Joseph about Herod's plans and ordered him to take the child and his mother to Egypt to wait for Herod's death. (Matthew 2:13-15) Following the angelic warning the Holy Family fled, escaping in time to avoid the massacre.

Their flight has been the subject of innumerable paintings, sculptures and decorative works over the centuries. Indeed, as a subject, it is as important as the Nativity itself, or the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

The Flight into Egypt -- The Holy Refugees, The "Simple" Images (Part I of a Series) click here
The Flight Into Egypt -- The Variations (Part 2 of a Series) click here
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Fruits, Flowers and Family, Part I of 3 click here
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Activities Along the Way and Arrival, Part II of 3 click here
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Adoration of the Child, Part III of 3 click here

So, come and join those who, over many centuries, have contemplated the effects of Herod's horrible attack on the children of Bethlehem and the means by which his intended target was saved to live for the purpose for which he was sent.

On the Iconography of Christmas

2025-12-23T01:24:00.001-05:00

Luisa Roldan (called La Roldana), Rest on the Flight into Egypt
Spanish, c. 1690
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Advent/Christmas Season has figured heavily in the history of Western Christian art from the early fourth century onward. There is a tremendous amount of material available and over the years of this blog I have written a great deal about the iconography attached to the various days and weeks. To make the material more accessible to readers I have gathered below most of these essays into a series of useful links for connecting to what I have already written on the various subjects (much as I have done for Holy Week and the Easter season).

Although the specific readings these images reflect do not form part of the liturgy in every year, each year does touch on most of them.

Please note that occasionally one or more of the essays mentioned may be unavailable at times. This is because I am attempting to keep the essays updated with new images or images that have become available in more detailed versions, thanks to improving technology and expanded access to images.

So, here goes...

Last Week of Advent/Preparation for Christmas

The O Antiphons. These are a series of antiphons (short verses that precede and follow the prayer of the Magnificat at Evening Prayer (Vespers) during the last week of Advent. They offer meditations on the significance of the Child born on Christmas Day.

The O Antiphons (introduction) click here

O Wisdom, O Holy Word of God! click here
O Flower of Jesse's Stem! click here
O Key of David! Come, break down the walls of death! click here
O Radiant Dawn! O Sun of Justice! click here
O King of All the Nations! click here
O Emmanuel! Savior of all people, come and set us free! click here

Nativity (central group of figures) from the Metropolitan Museum Christmas Tree
Italian (Naples), Late 18th Century
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Annunciation

The apparition of the Archangel Gabriel to the young woman of Nazareth named Mary is the event that begins the events of the life of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the Gospel readings for Mass on the last Sunday and last week of Advent, focus on it. It has also been a principal topic for artists for many centuries, and is quite frequent on Christmas cards as well. I have written extensively on the iconography of the Annunciation and my work can easily be accessed through the guide that I put together last year.

Links to the Iconography of the Annunciation click here

The Consolation of Saint Joseph

An angel reveals to Joseph that Mary's pregnancy comes from God, not from a man. Joseph acts on his dream and marries Mary, becoming the guardian of the Son of God.

Joseph, Do Not Be Afraid! click here

Circle of Antoine Le Moiturier, Nativity
French, c. 1450
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Birth of Jesus

The Nativity

Mary and Joseph are unable to find lodging in a crowded Bethlehem and find shelter in a stable (or cave) where Mary gives birth and places her child in the manger where the animals usually feed. Angels announce the good news of his birth to the shepherds in the fields, who come and adore him.

Love's Pure Light -- Light From Darkness click here
The Animals at the Manger click here

The Holy Family

Images of the three members of the Holy Family.

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! – The Holy Family click here

Altarpiece with Scenes of the Infancy of Christ
Northern French, Late 15th Century
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Aftermath

The Visit of the Wise Men

Wise men, led by a star, come from the East to visit the newborn child and offer him rich gifts.

How the Image of the Wise Men Was Formed click here

The Holy Innocents

King Herod the Great knows about the prophecy of a new king in Israel. After hearing the story of the wise men he decides to ensure his throne by eliminating this new born king. So, he orders the massacre of all infant boys under 2 years old.

The Holy Innocents – Nearly Forgotten Baby Martyrs click here

The Flight into Egypt

An angel warns Joseph about Herod's plans and orders him to take the child and his mother to Egypt to wait for Herod's death. The Holy Family flees.

The Flight into Egypt -- The Holy Refugees, The "Simple" Images (Part I of a Series) click here
The Flight Into Egypt -- The Variations (Part 2 of a Series) click here
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Part I of 3 click here
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Part II of 3 click here
The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Part III of 3 click here

Related Feasts

The beginning of the new year brings with it two feasts that are reflections on the Christmas story rather than narrative depictions of the Gospels. These are the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, on January 1 and the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus on January 3.

Mary, Mother of God click here
The Holy Name of Jesus click here

I wish you all a Blessed Christmas and a Healthy New Year!

Christmas Tree with 18th Century Presepio
Italian, 18th Century (tree modern)
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

For those of you who live in the New York area or who may be visiting, the glorious Christmas Tree with its 18th Century Italian Presepio figures (sometimes known as the Angel Tree) is again on view. This year it can be visited until January 6, 2026. As always, it is well worth the visit.

© M. Duffy, 2021, 2022 2023, 2024, 2025.

The O Antiphons

2025-12-16T01:36:00.002-05:00

+Follower of the Coetivy Master, Initial O
From a Book of Hours
French (Loire Region), c. 1470-1480
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
MS G1.II, fol. 232v

For the convenience of readers I am reposting this listing of the O Antiphons.

In the week before Christmas, the Liturgy of the Hours (the official daily prayer of the Church) includes a series of special antiphons that precede the recitation of the Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55) during Evening Prayer that are collectively called the O Antiphons. In the English-speaking world most Christians are familiar with them as they are paraphrased in the verses of the well-known Advent hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel", which is a free translation of the medieval Latin text.

The O Antiphons refer to Christ under eight different titles. These titles connect certain events or ideas from the Old Testament that are understood to forecast different aspects of Jesus and the salvation He came to give.

To see the images these titles reflect, click on the title of the antiphon below:

December 17 -- O Wisdom, O Holy Word of God!

December 18 -- O Sacred Lord of Ancient Israel!

December 19 -- O Flower of Jesse's Stem!

December 20 -- O, Key of David! Come, break down the walls of death!

December 21 -- O Radiant Dawn! O Sun of Justice!

December 22 -- O King of All the Nations!

December 23 -- O Emmanuel! Savior of all people, come and set us free!

In recent years a revival of lay interest in the Liturgy of the Hours has brought more awareness of these special texts.

Here is a video of Ely Cathedral Women's Choir singing the traditional English version of "Veni, Veni, Emmanuel".

+ Image updated 2024.

Stay Awake! The Admonition of Advent

2025-11-27T02:43:00.003-05:00

Masseot Abaquesne, The Flood
French, c. 1550
Ecouen, Musée national de la Renaissance

Jesus said to his disciples:

“As it was in the days of Noah,

so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

In those days before the flood,

they were eating and drinking,

marrying and giving in marriage,

up to the day that Noah entered the ark.

They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.

So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man.

Two men will be out in the field;

one will be taken, and one will be left.

Two women will be grinding at the mill;

one will be taken, and one will be left.

Therefore, stay awake!

For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.”

Matthew 24:37-42

(Excerpt from the Gospel for the First Sunday of Advent, Year A)

The Sunday lectionary (book of liturgical readings) of the Catholic Church contains the readings for each Sunday Mass during the liturgical year, which stretches from the first Sunday of Advent to the solemnity of Christ, the King of the Universe. It is arranged in a three year cycle, which means that excerpts from the Gospel of Matthew are read during the first year, labeled A. Excerpts from the Gospel of Mark are read in the second Year B and excerpts from the Gospel of Luke are read in the third, Year C. We have just completed one three year cycle and begin a new one this coming Sunday. The comments on the iconography suggested by this first week of Year A follow below.

The admonition in the Gospel for the First Sunday of Advent, Year A to “Stay Awake! For you do not know on which day your Lord will come” brings with it the reminder that “as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man”, people went on with their lives, unaware of the catastrophe that was about to fall on them in the Flood. And so it always is. We have ample evidence in contemplating the disasters of the past and of the present. There is abundant proof that the people of Pompeii and the other towns at the foot of Vesuvius went about their lives right up to their burial in layers of ash and mud. The mega tsunami in Indonesia in 2004 caught people eating breakfast or relaxing in their hotel pools as it crashed into them. The Japanese earthquake and tsunami that devastated Fukushima hit when no one was expecting it. Similarly, the recent highly damaging earthquakes in Italy have come in the middle of the night. And we have certainly seen in our own country the devastating effect of flood waters, with Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy and other weather events.

Bonaventura Peeters, The Great Flood
Dutch, c. 1630-1650
Private Collection

If we have no way of really preparing for and protecting ourselves from natural disasters, there is little likelihood that we will be completely prepared for the day of the Lord. I have always been mildly amused by the occasional warnings that the world will end on such and such a date. In the verse just before the start of this Sunday’s Gospel passage, Jesus tells his disciples “But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” (Matthew 24:36). If He himself does not know, how can anyone else, no matter by what means they claim the knowledge. Consequently, it is a good idea to heed Jesus’ warning and “Stay awake” with prayer, good works, both physical and spiritual, and an expectant heart. This is the message of Advent, not one of fear, but of hope and expectation.

Mosaic, The Flood
Italian, c. 1215-1235
Venice, Basilica of San Marco

Images of the Flood

Over the centuries artists have confronted this warning in several ways. They have shown us images of the final resurrection and of the Last Judgment, but only a relative few have addressed the central image of this Sunday’s reading, the Great Flood and the time just before it, when the actions of humanity prompted such a violent reaction.

In this essay I am talking about images of the Flood in itself, not about the story of Noah. There are many, many images of the story of Noah, from the warning he received from God, to his struggle to build the ark. And there are many, many images showing the animals entering the ark, the ark floating in the waters, the sending of the raven and the dove, the landing on Ararat, the exit of Noah, his family and the animals from the ark and the resettlement of the earth. However, I am not referring to them directly here.

Jacopo Torriti, Scenes from the Old Testament, The Building of the Ark
Italian, c.1290
Assisi, Basilica of San Francesco, Upper Church

There is a steady stream of images of the Flood itself through time, beginning in the thirteenth century and running through time. The earliest images seem to show the effects of the flood at its height, as well as of Noah’s preparations. We are shown the bodies of humans and animals floating amid the ruins of buildings, while a few who still survive are shown trying to swim.

The Deluge
From De Civitate Dei by Saint Augustine
French (Paris), c. 1400-1425
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 174, fol. 83r

The Deluge
From De Civitate Dei by Saint Augustine
French (Paris), c. 1400-1425
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 173, fol. 70v

Master of Jouvenel des Ursins and collaborators, The Deluge
From Mare historiarum of John of Cologne
French (Anjou), c. 1447-1455
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 4915, fol. 25r

Maitre de l'echevinage and collaborators, The Deluge
From De Civitate Dei by St. Augustine
French (Rouen). c. 1450-1475
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 28, fol. 66v

Lucas Cranach the Elder and the Younger, The Flood
German, c. 1531-1539
Schneeberg, St. Wolfgang's Church

Trying to Escape

Around the middle of the fifteenth century these images are joined by others that focus on the attempts of the population to escape the rising waters. These pictures are often highly dramatic, with the drama increasing markedly as time passed.

Paolo Uccello, The Flood
Italian, c. 1447-1448
Florence, Church of Santa Maria Novella. Green Cloister

Anonymous, The Flood
Possibly Italian, c. 1450-1500
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

Circle of Marten van Cleve the Elder, The Flood
Flemish, 16th century
St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum

Michelangelo, The Flood
Italian, c. 1508-1509
Vatican City, Apostolic Palace, Sistine Chapel

Jan van Scorel, The Flood
Dutch, c. 1530
Madrid, Museo del Prado

The Flood

From The Story of Noah Tapestry Series

Flemish, c. 1550-1600

St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum

The Great Flood Tapestry
Flemish, Early 17th Century
St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum

Antonio Caracci, The Flood
Italian, c.1600
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Alessandro Turchi, The Flood
Italian, c.1630
Paris, Musée du Louvre

David Teniers II, The Deluge
Flemish, c.1655
Lawrence, KS, Spencer Museum of Art-The University of Kansas

Nicolas Poussin, Winter or the Flood
French, c. 1660-1664
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Many of these pictures, especially those from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are dramatically posed.

Louis Dorigny, The Flood
French, 1700-1703
Venice, Palazzo Tron

Mattia Bortoloni, The Flood
Italian, 1717-1718
Piombino Dese, Villa Cornaro

Jacopo Amigoni, The Flood
Italian, 1728
Ottobeuren, Benedictine Monastery Church

Jean-Baptiste Regnault, The Flood
French, c.1800
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Theodore Gericault, A Scene of the Flood
French, c. 1800
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Phillip James de Louthebourg, The Deluge
French, c. 1800
London, Victoria and Albert Museum

Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson, A Scene of the Flood
French, c. 1806
Paris, Musée du Louvre

After the Flood

In addition, there are a few images of the aftermath, of the wreckage of dead bodies amid the devastation of the earth.

Cornelis Coneliszoon van Haarlem, After the Flood
Dutch, c. 1588
St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum

Leon Francois Comerre, The Flood
French, c. 1900-1916
Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts

This is the image of the Flood that appears to have struck a chord among nineteenth-century American painters.

Joshua Shaw, The Deluge Towards Its Close
American, c. 1813
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Thomas Cole, The Subsiding of the Waters of the Deluge
American, 1829
Washington, DC, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

"They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark"

Also, in the mid-sixteenth century, we begin to see images of what was going on before the Flood. We are looking at “In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark. They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.” (Matthew 24:38-39).

Cornelis Corneliszoon van Haarlem, Sinners Before the Flood

Dutch, 1594

St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum

Cornelis Conneliszoon van Haarlem, Humanity Before the Flood
Dutch, 1615
Toulouse, Musée des Augustins

Frans Floris, Banquet of the Gods
Flemish, 1550
Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten

Pierre Reymond, The Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche
French (Limoges), 1558
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hendrick Goltzius after Bartolomeus Spranger, The Feast of the Gods at the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche
Dutch, 1587
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

These continue into the middle of the seventeenth century and then seem to peter out.

Cornelis Corneliszoon van Haarlem, Banquet of the Gods
Dutch, 1624
Private Collection

Ultimately, it is the images of the Flood itself, of its terror and of its sad aftermath that took center stage. They serve as a reminder to us all, both for the everyday terrors of floods, fires and earthquakes and of that ultimate event for which we should maintain our vigilance over our own hearts.

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

2025-11-23T02:31:00.000-05:00

"Let us give thanks to the Father,
who has made you fit to share
in the inheritance of the holy ones in light.
He delivered us from the power of darkness
and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

He is the image of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.
For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church.
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he himself might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile all things for him,
making peace by the blood of his cross
through him, whether those on earth or those in heaven.

Colossians 1:12-20

Second Reading from Mass of the Feast of the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Year C

The Master of the Trinity, The King of Kings

From the Petites heures of Jean de Berry

French (Bourges), c. 1385-1390

Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France

MS Latin 18014, fol. 194v

The idea of Jesus as king of the universe goes back to the earliest decades of Christian life. In Philippians 2:9-11, written sometime between 55 and 63 AD, St. Paul quotes what is believed to be one of the earliest Christian hymns which proclaims “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” at whose name “every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Philippians 2:11 and 10).

In Christian art, however, the visual representation of Christ as King and Lord of the universe took a while to develop. It was not until the 4th century, when Christianity had become a tolerated religion and was free to construct buildings specifically for Christian worship, that this image began to appear. Earlier, images of Christ, made during the days of persecution and a need for concealment, had been symbolic (such as the well-known sign of the fish) or had been disguised (as for instance, the image of the Good Shepherd or the Philosopher). 1 With the easing of these pressures, and the accompanying sudden acquisition of Imperial favor and Imperial involvement; as well as in the course of thrashing out the Church’s understanding of the nature of Jesus as both human and divine, these images were superseded by others which reflected the kingly understanding already apparent in the hymn quoted by St. Paul.

Developing the Iconography

The obvious place to which 4th century Christians looked for ideas in how to portray the human-divine person of Jesus as King was to already existing images of the Emperor. These images went back as far as the time of Augustus in the early 1st century (as for instance in the Augusta Primaporta).

Augustus Primaporta,
Roman, 1st century
Vatican, Vatican Museums, Braccio Nuovo

But they were also as recent as Constantine’s own colossal statue of around 315. This gigantic statue, original parts of which can be seen today in the Capitoline Museum in Rome, was placed around 315 in the secular basilica, now known as the Basilica of Constantine, close to the Coliseum. Modeled on the famous colossal statue of the god, Zeus, at Olympus, it showed Constantine seated, holding a scepter in his upraised right hand. Reconstructions have suggested that he held an orb in his now missing left hand. In 2024 an actual reconstruction was created, using digital images of the original parts and using best guess digital reconstructions of the parts that have not survived. This reconstruction has been placed in a garden that is part of the Capitoline Museum area and the effect is astonishing. This is definitely an overwhelming image of power and glory.

Reconstruction of Colossal Statue of Constantine
Italian, 2024
Rome, Capitoline Museum, Giardino di Villa Caffarelli

This image tricks the eye into thinking that the statue of Hercules(?) is the base for the colossal statue. It is actually many feet away, as the image below makes clear.

Reconstruction of Colossal Statue of Constantine
Italian, 2024
Rome, Capitoline Museum, Giardino di Villa Caffarelli

This image will be on display in the garden until at least the end of 2025.

It is, therefore, not surprising that the earliest images of Christ as King portray Him in a similar way. In one of the two apse mosaics from the tomb of Constantine’s daughter, Constantina, dated to around 350, Christ appears as if an Emperor. As described by Prof. Johannes Deckers “Christ is portrayed as Pantocrator, enthroned atop a transparent blue sphere symbolizing the cosmos. Although he still wears the traditional costume of a philosopher, consisting of tunic, cloak and sandals, now his garments are either gold or purple adorned with wide gold stripes like those of the emperor. His bearded head is surrounded by a nimbus, a device employed in earlier Roman art to distinguish gods, personifications, and deified emperors. Christ hands Peter a pair of keys symbolic of the powers entrusted to him. Peter receives the keys in humility, his hands draped in his cloak. …. it is as though we are witnessing a ceremony at the court of the emperor of heaven. Peter approaches Christ in the way etiquette demanded that an official approach the emperor on receiving an appointment. .. Christ appears like the lord of heaven between fiery clouds, enthroned above the spherical cosmos. To see how explicitly Christ is cast in the role of n emperor, one need only glance at a traditional formula adapted for various rulers in Roman times.”2

Christ in Majesty Mosaic
Roman, c. 350
Rome, Church of Santa Costanza

However, there are also significant differences between the image of Christ and the image of the Emperor for Christ holds, not a scepter and an orb, but keys and a scroll, very much as He had in the image of the Traditio Legis. He is not the worldly ruler, but a ruler whose kingdom is one of heavenly power, based on the Scriptures.

A few decades later, in the last decade of the 4th century, the Roman church of Santa Pudenziana was decorated with an apse mosaic in which the theme of Christ as ruler is still close to that of the Emperor. This image shows Christ, seated on a throne and surrounded by the Apostles, as well as by two female figures that may represent the Old and New Testaments.

Christ in Majesty Mosaic
Roman, c. 400
Rome, Church of Santa Pudenziana

Compositionally, it is not unlike the silver plate, called the Missorium of Theodosius I, which is almost exactly contemporary. However, again there are points of departure between the images. In Santa Pudenziana, Christ once again holds a document which now begins to resemble a codex (a bound book, instead of a scroll) and His right hand begins to assume a blessing gesture.

Silver Plate known as the Missorium of Theodosius I

Roman, c. 388

Madrid, Academia Real de Historia

In the image used in the sixth century church of San Vitale in Ravenna, at that time the Italian capital of the emerging Byzantine Empire (based in Constantinople, today's Istanbul) Christ again holds a scroll or possibly a codex in his left hand, while presenting the wreath of heavenly victory to the emperor, who is presented to him by an angel.

Christ in Majesty
Mosaic, Byzantine, c. 526-547
Ravenna, Church of San Vitale

Byzantine Tradition

These late antique images formed the basis for the image of the Christ Pantocrator, which became widespread in Byzantine and Byzantine-derived works.

The earliest known image of the specific type known as the Pantocrator comes from the sixth century, from the monastery of Saint Catherine at Sinai. It is a more focused view of the upper body of Christ, which appears to derive from the Christ in Majesty figures in the earlier mosaic works.

Earliest Known Image of Christ as Pantocrator
Byzantine, 6th Century
Sinai (Egypt), Saint Catherine's Monastery

This became the favored image for the Byzantine world, frequently appearing in mosaic form wherever the Greek Church was established, as far west as southern Italy and Sicily and in the Greek derived Churches of Eastern Europe and Russia.

Apse Mosaic
Byzantine, 1148
Cefalu (Sicily), Cathedral

Apse Mosaic
Byzantine, c. 1180-1190
Monreale (Sicily), Cathedral

Icon of Christ Pantocrator
Russian, 1363
Saint Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum

However, the Byzantine tradition also continued to use image of a full-scale seated Christ as well.

Basilius, The Deesis
From the Melisande Psalter
Byzantine (Jerusalem), c. 1131-1143
London, British Library
MS Egerton 1139, fol. 12v

Ascension with Christ in Majesty
From a Gospel Book
Eastern Mediterranean, Possible Cyprus or Palestine, c. 1175-1250
London, British Library
MS Harley 1810, fol. 135v

Deesis Mosaic
Byzantine, c. 1260-1270
Istanbul, Hagia Sophia

Elias Moskos, Christ in Majesty
Greek, 1653
Recklinghausen, Ikonen-Museum

Medieval Europe

By the middle ages, in what had been the western half of the Roman Empire, the image of the seated Christ, holding a codex and blessing appeared in many media, large and small scale. These included book covers, book illustrations, sculpture, wall paintings and metalwork. Examples come from all over the Christian west.

Christ in Majesty
From the Gospel Book of Godescalc
German (Rheinland), c. 781-783
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Nouvelle acquisition latine 1203, fol. 3r

Christ in Majesty and the Visitation
From the Gospels of Saint-Médard de Soissons
German (Aachen), c. 800
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 8850, fol. 124r

Christ in Majesty
From the Gospels of Lothair
French (Tours), c. 849-851
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 266, fol. 2v

Christ in Majesty with Prophets and Evangelists
From the Codex Aureus of Saint Emmeram
French, c. 870-879
Munich, Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek
MS Cod. lat. 14000, fol. 6v

Christ in Majesty
From the Sacramentary of Charles the Bald
French, c. 870
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 1141, rol. 5r

Christ in Majesty
From the Benedictional of Aethelwold
English, c. 963-984
London, British Library
MS Additional 49598, fol. 70r

Christ in Majesty Surrounded by the Evangelists and their Symbols
From the Gospels of the Sainte-Chapelle
German (Treves), c. 984
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 8851, fol. 1v

Christ in Majesty
Ivory, German, 11th century
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

By the beginning of the eleventh century (1000-1100) the image of Christ in Majesty was widespread. Christ is seated on a throne instead of the globe, most often he holds a book in one hand and makes a gesture of blessing with the other. He is usually surrounded by a mandorla, around which there may be angels, the evangelists or their symbols, and sometimes prophets and saints.

The Great Alleluia
From the Bamberg Apocalypse
German (Reichenau), c. 1010
Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek Bamberg
MS Msc.Bibl.140, fol. 47v

Lintel with Christ in Majesty
French, c. 1019-1020
Saint-Genis-des-Fontaines, Abbey Church

Capital with Christ in Majesty
French, c. 1050
Paris, Musée de Cluny, Musée nationale du Moyen Âge

Christ in Majesty
Tympanum of the West Portal
French, c. 1090
Charlieu, Church of Saint-Fortunat

Christ in Majesty
From the Shaftesbury Psalter
English, c. 1125-1150
London, British Library
MS Landsdowne 383, fol. 14v

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the city of Limoges in south-central France (long been famous for its enamelwork on copper and continuing this tradition of enamel painting to this day through its famous porcelain factories) produced what must have been thousands of variations on this image for use in portable altars, covers for liturgical books and other liturgical equipment.

In 2022 I found that the manuscript illuminators of medieval Limoges produced virtually identical works. This suggests that there was a commonly agreed upon model for producing this image in the city.

Christ in Majesty
From a Missal
French (Limoges), 12th Century
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 9438, fol. 58v

Christ in Majesty
French (Limoges), c. 1175-1200
Paris, Musée de Cluny, Musée nationale du Moyen Âge

Book-Cover Plaque with Christ in Majesty
French (Limoges), c. 1185-1210
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Book-Cover Plaque with Christ in Majesty
French (Limoges), c. 1200
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Enamel Cover of Gospel Book with Christ in Majesty
French (Limoges), c. 12th-13th Century
London, British Library
MS Additional 27926

Christ in Majesty
Enamel book cover plaque
French, Limoges, early 13th century
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plaque from a Book Cover with Christ in Majesty
French (Limoges), 13th Century
Vatican City, Musei Vaticani

These works from Limoges were spread all over Europe and must have had a very great influence on the artists in the countries that received their objects.

Christ in Majesty
From the Westminster Psalter
English (Westminster or St. Albans), c. 1300
London, British Library
MS Royal 2 A XXII, fol. 14r

Christ in Majesty
From a Psalter
French (North French), c. 1210
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 238, fol. 30v

Christ in Majesty
From Psalter of Saint Louis and Blanche of Castille
French, c. 1225
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Arsenal 1186, fol. 28r

Christ in Majesty
From the Portada del Sarmental
Spanish, c. 1235
Burgos, Cathedral

Christ in Majesty
From Images de la vie du Christ et des saints
Flemish (Hainaut), c. 1285-1290
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Nouvelle acquisition francaise 16251, fol. 51v

Christ in Majesty
From Bible historiale by Guiard des Moulins
French (Paris), c. 1300-1325
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 160, fol. 1r

The Queen Mary Master, Christ in Majesty
From the Queen Mary Psalter
English (Westminster), c. 1310-1320
London, British Library
MS Royal 2 B VII, fol. 298v

Atelier of Jean Pucelle, Christ in Majesty
From the Breviary of Belleville
French (Paris), c. 1323-1326
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS latin 10483, fol. 213r

Christ in Majesty
From Meditationes vitae Christi
Italian (Siena), c. 1330-1340
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Italien 115, fol. 4r

Niccolo di Giacomo di Nascimbene, aka Niccolo da Bologna, Christ in Majesty with Saints
Cutting from a Choir Book
Italian (Bologna), c. 1350-1375
London, British Library
MS Additional 22310, fol. 10

Jean le Noir, Christ in Majesty

From the Petites heures of Jean de Berry

French (Bourges), c. 1385-1390

Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France

MS Latin 18014, fol. 53r

Christ in Majesty
From the Breviary of Martin of Aragon
Spanish (Catalonia), c. 1398-1403 & 1420-1430
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Rothschild 2529, fol. 104v

Christ in Majesty with the Twelve Elders
From the Liber Floridus by Lambert de Saint-Omer
Flemish (Lille), 1460
The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek
MS KB 72 A 23, fol. 11v

The Renaissance

The Renaissance period brought some changes to the use of the image of Christ in Majesty.

For one thing, it returned to use as a decoration for the semi-domes of the churches that were being built according to classical principles, first as a continuation of the mosaic tradition and later in newly realistic paintings.

Apse Mosaic of Christ in Majesty
Italian, 1297
Florence, Church of San Miniato al Monte

Boccaccio Boccaccino, Christ in Majesty with the Patron Saints of Cremona
Italian, 1506
Cremona, Cathedral

And it appeared in the newly introduced form of panel paintings.

Giotto, The Stefaneschi Triptych
Italian, c. 1330
Vatican City, Pinacoteca Vaticana

Hans Memling, Christ in Majesty Surrounded by Angels
Center of triptych
Netherlandish, 1480s
Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten

The Tradition Continues

This visual tradition leads right up to the 20th century, with the huge mosaic of Christ in Majesty in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D. C., executed by Jan Henryk de Rosen, completed in 1959.

Jan Henryk de Rosen, Christ in Majesty
Polish, 1959
Washington, D.C., National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

On December 11, 1925, at the conclusion of the 1925 Holy Year, Pope Pius XI established the feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with his encyclical, Quas Primas (The first (encyclical) which). In the encyclical Pius XI traced the roots of the title in the Bible and in Sacred Tradition and its meaning for the entire world. He fixed the date of the feast “on the last Sunday of the month of October - the Sunday, that is, which immediately precedes the Feast of All Saints”.3

On February 14, 1969, following Vatican Council II, Pope Paul VI in his motu proprio, Mysterii paschalis (The Paschal Mystery), promulgated a revised calendar of liturgical celebrations for the universal Church.4 As one of the revisions the Solemnity of Christ the King was moved to its present location of the last Sunday in Ordinary Time, as a fitting way to mark the close of the Church’s liturgical year. This move gave to the feast a slightly different, more cosmic, emphasis, an emphasis that had, in fact, been latent in the image of Christ in Majesty for centuries. For, at this time of the year, that is in the weeks leading up to and including the first Sunday of Advent (the Sunday which begins the new liturgical year), we are presented with readings that deal with the end of time and the final judgment of the world when, at His second coming, Christ will return to judge the world. Therefore, the image of Christ as King of the Universe and Lord of Time, with its undertones of relationship to scenes of the Last Judgment has found a match in the liturgical feast.

Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat!

___________________________________________
1. Spier, Jeffrey; Fine, Steven; Charles-Murray, Mary; Jensen, Robin M.; Deckers, Johannes G. and Kessler, Herbert L. Picturing the Bible: the Earliest Christian Art, Catalog of the exhibition held at the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX, November 28, 2007-March 30, 2008, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007, pp. 13, 51-64. For information on this past exhibition see https://www.kimbellart.org/Exhibitions/Exhibition-Details.aspx?eid=47

2. Spier, et al., p. 95.

3. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas_en.html

4. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/motu_proprio/documents/hf_p-vi_motu-proprio_19690214_mysterii-paschalis_en.html

© M. Duffy, Originally published, 2011.

Revised with additional material and new images, 2022.

Additional material added 2024.

Introduction revised 2025.

Saint Francis of Assisi, The Stigmatization

2025-10-04T06:06:00.004-04:00

Cosme Tura, The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
Italian, c. 1470s
Washington, National Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection

One of the most difficult, if not THE most difficult of all saints to discuss from an iconographic point of view is that great favorite of nearly everyone who has ever heard of him, Saint Francis of Assisi. Whether the image that most people have of him is derived from movies or holy cards or books, everyone is bound to have an image in their heads of what he looks like and who he is. It doesn’t matter very much if you are a devout Catholic or an evangelical Protestant or even a neo-pagan or a Buddhist, everyone knows or thinks that they know Saint Francis. And Francis has been much in the forefront of culture over the last two decades due to the fact that the most recently deceased pope was the first to take his papal name from him and to assert Saint Francis as a model for his own actions. It is this very ubiquitousness of Saint Francis that makes it difficult to write about his iconography because he has been equally popular from his own lifetime till today and there is so much to choose from!

The images of Saint Francis are staggering both in quantity and in the variety of ways in which they depict the saint. Virtually every moment of the life of Francesco Bernardone has been depicted, the real ones as well as the legendary ones, and in addition there are imaginings of his afterlife, and especially imaginings of significant mystical experiences that he had, both alive and dead. Collecting these images is time-consuming and never in a single year have I been able to feel confident that I have found all that there is. In searching I have restricted myself mostly to paintings, ignoring the thousands of images of the saint found in prints, drawings, textiles, ceramics and other sculptural media. Even with these restrictions I have managed to come up with more material than I can incorporate into a brief internet essay. Five years ago, I decided to restrict myself to depictions of his death and funeral. This year I have decided to restrict myself to depictions of the most famous mystical event in his life, his reception of the Stigmata, known as the Stigmatization of Saint Francis of Assisi. The Stigmatia is the appearance of the five wounds of the Passion of Christ, on the body of an especially holy individual. Beginning with Saint Francis, it has been bestowed on very few people in history. It is a rare and mysterious sign of their union with the sufferings of Christ.

The bestowal of these marks of the Passion is a mysterious event, but, in this case, their bestowal was witnessed. In the late summer of 1224 Saint Francis had retreated to a location in the mountains, Mount La Verna, with some of his followers. Among his companions was Brother Leo, his secretary. Bother Leo recorded the event in a manuscript that still exists at Assisi today. It was later incorporated into the book called the Fioretti or in English The Little Flowers of Saint Francis, full of multiple stories, some real and some imagined, about the lives of Saint Francis and his early followers. It is believed to have been completed in the late 14^th century, about 100-150 years after Francis’ life.

From the Fioretti

“We are come now to the third consideration, namely, of the seraphical apparition, and the impression of the sacred, holy stigmata.

As the Feast of the Holy Cross then drew nigh, in the month of September, Brother Leo went one night at his accustomed hour to say Matins with St Francis…(material omitted by me)...

The day before the Feast of the most Holy Cross, as St Francis was praying secretly in his cell, an angel of God appeared to him, and spake to him thus from God: “I am come to admonish and encourage thee, that thou prepare thyself to receive in all patience and humility that which God will give and do to thee.”

St Francis replied: “I am ready to bear patiently whatsoever my Lord shall be pleased to do to me”; and so the angel departed. On the following day - being the Feast of the Holy Cross - St Francis was praying before daybreak at the entrance of his cell, and turning his face towards the east, he prayed in these words: “O Lord Jesus Christ, two graces do I ask of thee before I die; the first, that in my lifetime I may feel, as far as possible, both in my soul and body, that pain which thou, sweet Lord, didst endure in the hour of thy most bitter Passion; the second, that I may feel in my heart as much as possible of that excess of love by which thou, O Son of God, wast inflamed to suffer so cruel a Passion for us sinners.” And continuing a long time in that prayer, he understood that God had heard him, and that, so far as is possible for a mere creature, he should be permitted to feel these things.

Having then received this promise, St Francis began to contemplate most devoutly the Passion of Jesus Christ and his infinite charity; and so greatly did the fervour of devotion increase within him, that he was all transformed into Jesus by love and compassion.

And being thus inflamed in that contemplation, on that same morning he beheld a seraph descending from heaven with six fiery and resplendent wings; and this seraph with rapid flight drew nigh unto St Francis, so that he could plainly discern him, and perceive that he bore the image of one crucified; and the wings were so disposed, that two were spread over the head, two were outstretched in flight, and the other two covered the whole body. And when St Francis beheld it, he was much afraid, and filled at once with joy and grief and wonder. He felt great joy at the gracious presence of Christ, who appeared to him thus familiarly, and looked upon him thus lovingly, but, on the other hand, beholding him thus crucified, he felt exceeding grief and compassion. He marvelled much at so stupendous and unwonted a vision, knowing well that the infirmity of the Passion accorded ill with the immortality of the seraphic spirit. And in that perplexity of mind it was revealed to him by him who thus appeared, that by divine providence this vision had been thus shown to him that he might understand that, not by martyrdom of the body, but by a consuming fire of the soul, he was to be transformed into the express image of Christ crucified in that wonderful apparition. Then did all the Mount Alvernia appear wrapped in intense fire, which illumined all the mountains and valleys around, as it were the sun shining in his strength upon the earth, for which cause the shepherds who were watching their flocks in that country were filled with fear, as they themselves afterwards told the brethren, affirming that this light had been visible on Mount Alvernia for upwards of an hour. And because of the brightness of that light, which shone through the windows of the inn where they were tarrying, some muleteers who were travelling in Romagna arose in haste, supposing that the sun had risen, and saddled and loaded their beasts; but as they journeyed on, they saw that light disappear, and the visible sun arise.

In this seraphical apparition, Christ, who appeared under that form to St Francis, spoke to him certain high and secret things, which in his lifetime he would never reveal to any person, but after his death he made them known to one of the brethren, and the words were these: “Knowest thou,” said Christ, ”what I have done to thee? I have given thee the stigmata which are the insignia of my Passion, that thou mayest be my standard-bearer; and as on the day of my death I descended into limbo, and by virtue of these my stigmata delivered thence all the souls whom I found there, so do I grant to thee that every year on the anniversary of thy death thou mayst go to Purgatory, and take with thee to the glory of Paradise all the souls of thy three Orders, the Friars Minor, the Sisters, and the Penitents, and likewise all others whom thou shalt find there, who have been especially devout to thee; that so thou mayst be conformed to me in death, as thou hast been like to me in life.” Then, after long and secret conference together, that marvellous vision disappeared, leaving in the heart of St Francis an excessive fire and ardour of divine love, and on his flesh a wonderful trace and image of the Passion of Christ. For upon his hands and feet began immediately to appear the figures of the nails, as he had seen them on the Body of Christ crucified, who had appeared to him in the likeness of a seraph. And thus the hands and feet appeared pierced through the midst by the nails, the heads whereof were seen outside the flesh in the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, and the points of the nails stood out at the back of the hands, and the feet in such wise that they appeared to be twisted and bent back upon themselves, and the portion thereof that was bent back upon themselves, and the portion thereof that was bent back or twisted stood out free from the flesh, so that one could put a finger through the same as through a ring; and the heads of the nails were round and black. In like manner, on the right side appeared the image of an unhealed wound, as if made by a lance, and still red and bleeding, from which drops of blood often flowed from the holy breast of St Francis, staining his tunic and his drawers.

And because of this his companions, before they knew the truth from himself, perceiving that he would not uncover his hands and his feet, and that he could not set the soles of his feet upon the ground, and finding traces of blood upon his tunic when they washed it, understood of a certainty that he bore in his hands and feet and side the image and similitude of our Lord Jesus Christ crucified. And although he laboured hard to conceal these sacred stigmata holy and glorious, thus clearly impressed upon his flesh, yet finding that he could with difficulty hide them from his familiar companions, and fearing at the same time to reveal the secrets of God, he was in great doubt and trouble of mind whether or not he should make known the seraphical vision and the impression of the sacred, holy stigmata. At last, being pricked in conscience, he called together certain of the brethren, in whom he placed the greatest confidence, and proposing to them his doubt in general terms, asked their counsel on the matter. Now among these friars there was one of great sanctity, called Brother Illuminato; and he, being truly illuminated by God, understood that St Francis must have seen something miraculous, and said thus to him: “Know, Brother Francis, that not for thyself alone, but for others, doth God reveal to thee his secrets, and therefore thou hast cause for fear lest thou be worthy of censure if thou conceal that which, for the good of others, has been made known to thee.”

Then St Francis, being moved by these words, with great fear and reverence told them the manner of the aforesaid vision, adding that Christ, who had thus appeared to him, had said to him certain things which he might never make known so long as he should live.

Now although these sacred wounds, which had been impressed upon him by Christ, gave great joy to his heart, yet they caused unspeakable pain to his body; so that, being constrained by necessity, he made choice of Brother Leo, for his great purity and simplicity, to whom he revealed the whole matter, suffering him to touch and dress his wounds on all days except during the time from Thursday evening till Saturday morning, for then he would not by any human remedy mitigate the pain of Christ’s Passion, which he bore in his body, because at that time our Saviour Jesus Christ was taken and crucified, died and was buried for us. And it came to pass sometimes that when Brother Leo was removing the bandage from the wound in the side, St Francis, because of the pain caused thereby, would lay his hand on Brother Leo’s breast, and at the touch of that holy hand Brother Leo felt such sweetness of devotion as well-nigh made him to fall fainting to the ground.”¹

^{The Iconography of the Stigmatization}

These events described occurred in September 1224. Saint Francis died on October 3, 1226, slightly over two years later. Although he had hoped to keep the stigmata secret, it was an unprecedented experience and proved impossible to control gossip about it. This is attested to by two things. The first is the number of depictions of a scene from the funeral procession of the saint in which the secular authorities examined the body to search for the marks (and apparently found them)² and by the small but important number of artifacts that depict the event in this early period. The interesting point about these images is how closely they adhere to the description of the scene attributed to Brother Leo. One even includes him, crouching in a corner.

Enamel Reliquary of Saint Francis
French (Limoges), c. 1225-1300
Paris, Musée de Cluny, Musée National du Moyen Âge

This is the earliest image of the Stigmatization of Saint Francis that I could find. It dates to the decades following Francis' death in 1226 and presumably was made for a relic of the saint and could, potentially, have been seen and used by persons who had actually met him.

In 1228 Francis was canonized by Pope Gregory IX who, as Cardinal Ugolino, had been the official Cardinal Protector of the Order during Saint Francis’ lifetime. The unusually short span between the date of his death and that of his canonization attests also to the opinion which contemporaries had about him and his life.

The years following his canonization saw the development of his hagiography. Events from his life, both real and imaginary, were turned into visual experiences. One of the greatest of these early visuals was the decoration of the basilica built in Assisi in his honor, which got underway shortly after the canonization and continued for several decades. The principal decoration of the two churches, upper and lower, was entrusted to the greatest painter of the period, Giotto di Bondone. Giotto and his workshop contributed the selection of episodes and the creation of images that became central to the iconography of Saint Francis.

Giotto and Workshop, The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
Italian, c. 1297-1300
Assisi, Basilica of San Francesco, Upper Church

Giotto's image fleshes out the scene of the bestowal of the Stigmata, with the mountain setting, the seraph with the Crucified Christ and Brother Leo reading his prayer book in the corner. All these details will become pretty standard.

The canonization and the work of Giotto and his team at Assisi truly opened the floodgates for images and they came flooding through.

Morse with Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1300-1350
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Medieval Art

A morse is the clasp that holds the edges of a cope (liturgical cape) closed at the throat.

School of Giotto, Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1300-1325
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures

Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
From a Meditationes Vitae Christi
Italian (Sienna), c. 1330-1340
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Italien 115, fol. 2v

Giovanni di Benedetto & Workshop, The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
From a Book of Hours
Italian (Milan), c. 1385-1390
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 757, fol. 360v

By 1300 the Franciscan family had spread far beyond the borders of Italy and was established in most European countries and in the Holy Land. They could be found in most cities and also in rural areas, trying to live lives that were consistent with that of their founder. And they built churches and other buildings that offered locations that could be offered to patrons as opportunities to leave a legacy.

The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
From a Life of Saint Francis
French (North), c. 14th-15th Centuries
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS 2093, fol. 74r

The Master of the Cite des Dames, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
_From a Le Miroir Historial by Vincent of Beauvais
French (Paris), c. 1400-1410
The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek
MS KB 72 A 24, fol. 326v
This image is unusual in that it depicts the event of the Stigmatization as taking place within a house, with Saint Francis lying asleep on a bed. It appears that the painter either did not know the story or deliberately suppressed the usual details.

Pesellino, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1400-1450
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures

Lorenzo Monaco, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1420s
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

The Master of Staffolo, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1420
Philadelphia, Museum of Art

Jan van Eyck, Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata
Flemish, c. 1430-1432
Philadelphia, Museum of Art

Sassetta, The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
From the San Sepolchro Altarpiece
Italian, c. 1434-1444
London, National Gallery

Fra Angelico, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
From a Pradella
Italian, c.. 1440
Vatican City, Vatican Museums, Pinacoteca Vaticana

Guglielmo Girardi, The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
From the Hours of Louis of Savoy
French (Savoy), c. 1445-1460
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 9473, fol. 170v

This painter has shifted the setting of the event from an austere mountain top to a gentle hillside replete with wild animals and a distant view.

Domenico Veneziano, Saint Francis Receives the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1445-1450
Washington, National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection

The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
From a Fleur des histoires by Jean Mansel
Flemish (Bruges), c. 1450-1500
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 298, fol. 147v

Giovanni di Paolo, The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
From an Antiphonary
Italian, c. 1450
Budapest, National Szechenyi Library

Lo Spagna (Giovanni di Pietro), Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1450-1528
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures

Benozzo Gozzoli, Scenes from the Life of Saint Francis, Saint Francis Receives the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1452
Montefalco, Church of San Francesco, Apsidal Chapel

Giovanni Bellini, Saint Francis in the Desert
Italian, c. 1475-1480
New York, The Frick Collection

The Stigmatization event is merely hinted at in this enigmatic painting by Giovanni Bellini. The surroundings are untypical and the only references to the event are the position of Saint Francis and his intense gaze at the celestial light display in the upper left corner of the picture.

Francois le Babier the Younger, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
From a Legenda aurea by Jacobus de Voragine
French (Paris), c. 1480-1490
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 245, fol. 124v

Matteo da Gualdo, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, 1491
Gualdo Tadino, Church of San Francesco

As time wore on and artistic abilities developed more sophistication and greater expertise, the setting of the Stigmatization became more elaborate and realistic. However, the basic elements of the scene remain: Francis, the mountain setting and the seraph in the form of a crucifix. Brother Leo is usually also depicted and sometimes there are buildings shown as well.

The Circle of Antoniazzo Romano, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1500
Vatican City, Vatican Museums, Pinacoteca Vaticana

Jean Bourdichon, The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
From the Hours of Frederic of Aragon
French (Tours), c. 1501-1502
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 10532, fol. 370

Albrecht Altdorfer, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
German, 1507
Berlin, Gemaeldegalerie der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

The Master of Hoogstraten, Saint Francis of Assisi receiving the Stigmata
Flemish, c. 1510
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

Joos van Cleve, The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
Upper portion of an altarpiece
Flemish, c. 1520-1525
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures

The Master of the Ango Hours, The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
From a Prayer Book
French (Rouen), c. 1520
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS NAL 3253, fol. 64v

Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
From the Heures d'Antoine le Bon, Duke of Lorraine
French (Lorraine), 1533
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS NAL 302, fol. 80v

Domenico Beccafumi, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, 1537
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures

Agnolo Bronzino, Ceiling including the Stigmatization of Saint Francis
Italian, c. 1541
Florence, Palazzo Vecchio, Cappella di Eleonora di Toledo

The inclusion of the scene of the Stigmata may have been a special request of the patrons, Duke Cosimo de Medici and his wife Eleonora de Toledo, as it is of a more active subject matter than the other images which are essentially portraits of Saints Michael, John the Evangelist and Jerome.

Antonio Campi, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1560-1570
Vatican City,Vatican Museums, Pinacoteca Vaticana

El Greco, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Greco-Spanish, c. 1585-1590
Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum

Federico Barocci, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1594-1599
Vatican City, Vatican Museums, Pinacoteca Vaticana

Il Cigoli, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, 1595
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi

Frans Pourbus the Younger, Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata
Flemish, 1620
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures

Frederic Brentel, Saint Francis Receives the Stigmata
From the Hours de Guillaume de Bade
French, 1647
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 10567, p. 433

Laurent de La Hyre, A Landscape with the Stigmatization of Saint Francis
French, c. 1650-1656
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures

Alonso Cano, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata
Spanish, c. 1651
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

Jose del Castillo, The Stigmatization of Saint Francis
Spanish, c. 1750-1800
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

Saint Francis Supported by Angels

After 1600 a new theme began to appear, that of angelic comforters. This is not something that was included in the earlier stories or pictures and seems to be an invention of the later era. The saint is shown as having collapsed after receiving the stigmata, from the intensity of the experience. Brother Leo has been replaced by an angel or group of angels who minister to the prostrate figure of the saint. The inspiration behind this image is likely that of Christ following his forty-day fast and encounter with Satan at the Temptation and represents an expansion by later followers of the original idea of participating in Christ's sufferings. It appears that they have moved toward identifying Saint Francis with additional events in the life of Christ.

Orazio Gentileschi, Saint Francis Supported by an Angel
Italian, c. 1607
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

Geerart Seghers, Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy Comforted by Angels After His Stigmatization
Flemish, c. 1620-1624
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures

Govanni Battista Tiepolo, Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata
Italian, c. 1767-1769
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

Still, it is remarkable that, over hundreds of years, the image of this event in the life of Saint Francis has continued to appear in much the same manner as it was in the years that followed immediately upon its occurrence.

1. 1. Hudlestone, Dom Roger, with an Introduction by Arthur Livingstone. The Little Flowers of Saint Francis, New York, The Heritage Press. Christian Classics Ethereal Library, https://ccel.org/ccel/ugolino/flowers/flowers. The original was probably compiled during the later 13^th Century and completed during the early 14^th.

1. 2. See several depictions of this phase of the funeral at "The Death of Saint Francis" https://imaginemdei.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-death-of-saint-francis.html

Meditating on the Assumption

2025-08-15T02:07:00.002-04:00

Andrea dal Castagno, The Assumption of the Virgin with Saints Julian
and Minas (Miniato) of Florence
Italian, c. 1440-1450
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Most mages of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary depict the scene as one in which the astonished Apostles watch from the ground as the Virgin rises through the sky. (Many instances can be found in the first four essays in the "In the Spotlight" section of the right hand side bar on this page.)

The Apostles are frequently shown standing at her empty tomb, which may be filled with lilies, the symbol of Mary’s purity. However, there are some other images that offer a different slant on the same theme.

These other images depict, not the event of the Assumption, rather they offer a reflection on it. What distinguishes these images from the mainstream is their somewhat static nature and the presence of figures other than Mary's contemporaries, such as the Apostles. These non-Apostolic figures are usually saints who have in some way contributed to the theological reflection on Mary's role in the history of salvation, as the mother of Jesus Christ. Alternatively, they may be the patron saints of the church in which they were located or of the person who commissioned the picture.

One example is found in the image above, painted by Andrea dal Castagno in the 1440s. Castagno and his workshop painted the Virgin of the Assumption between Saints Julian and Miniato as part of an altarpiece for the church of San Miniato fra le Torri in Florence. Saint Minas (or Miniato) is the patron saint of that church and Saint Julian is the patron of inn keepers. Both Julian's profession and Miniato's patronage would appear to have played a role in its composition.

Other examples are:

Luca Signorelli and Workshop, Our Lady of the Assumption with Saints Michael and Benedict
Italian, c. 1493-1496
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of European Paintings

This was painted by Signorelli and his workshop as part of the altarpiece for a the monastery dedicated to Saint Michael built for the members of the Olivetan branch of the Benedictine order in the city of Cortona. The saints chosen are the patron saint of the monastery and the founder of the Benedictine Order.

Assumption with Saints Francis of Assisi, Elizabeth of Hungary, Anthony of Padua and Catherine of Alexandria

Italian, c. 1500-1525

Avignon, Musée du Petit Palais

This image of the Assumption venerated by three Franciscan saints and the very popular Saint Catherine of Alexandria points to a commission from a Franciscan church.

Pietro Perugino, The Assumption with Saints Bernardo degli Uberti, Giovanni Gualberto, Benedict and Michael
Known as the Vallombrosa Altarpiece
Italian, c. 1497- 1500
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi

This altarpiece was commissioned from Perugino and his workshop for the monastery of Valllombrosa. The monastery housed a group of monks following the Benedictine rule. With the exception of the Archangel Michael, the saints depicted are Saint Benedict and two of his followers. Saint Giovanni Gualberto was the founder of the monastery of Vallombrosa. One of Perugino's assistants who worked on the commission was the young Raphael.

Andrea del Sarto, The Assumption of the Virgin
Known as the Assunta Passerini
Italian, c. 1525-1526
Florence, Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitt

In this image Andrea del Sarto presents both a conventional narrative view of the Assumption as witnessed by the Apostles and the more p ersonal meditative vision of the Assumption viewed by saints. In the lower level we see Saints Nicholas (looking at us over his shoulder) and Saint Margaret of Cortona (in white at the right). Both these saints had personal ties to the person who commissioned the work. She was named Margarkta Passerini and she was the daughter and mother of men whose name was Nicolo. Hence, the saints she requested as alternate witnesses have names intimately related to her human life.

Federico Zuccaro, Our Lady of the Assumption with Saints John the Baptist and Catherine of Alexandria
Italian, c. 1566
Cortona, Museo Diocesano

There may be some personal message here, but it is unknown. However, one can comment that these two saints were among the most popular throughout the history of Christianity. Saint John the Baptist, with his symbol of the lamb, was the cousin of Jesus and acted as his precursor, preaching a baptism of repentance. Saint Catherine of Alexandria, with her symbol of the broken wheel, was an early Christian martyr.

Jacques Stella, The Assumption of the Virgin Mary
French, c. 1625-1627
Nantes, Musée d'Arts

This looks like a standard picture of the Assumption until one notices the figure of the young man in the lower right corner. He may be the donor of the picture or he may be someone who is being commemorated by the donor.

Carlo Maratti, Our Lady of the Assumption and the Doctors of the Church
Italian, 1689
Rome, Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, Cybo Chapel

The four doctors are: Saints Augustine, John the Evangelist, John Chrysostom and Gregory the Great, all of whom had written about the Virgin Mary and her role in salvation.

This painting of a discussion between four doctors of the church who were instrumental in directing the thought of the Church to the role of Mary seems an appropriate place to end this exploration of the imagery (iconography) associated with her Assumption.

Glorious Saint Anne – The Iconography of Saint Anne

2025-07-26T03:12:00.001-04:00

Masaccio, Madonna and Child with Saint Anne
Italian, 1424
Florence, Uffizi Gallery

The course of the year has come round, once again, to the middle of July and the start of the period in which the Church turns to honor Saint Anne and her husband, Saint Joachim, parents of the Virgin Mary and grandparents of Jesus. As it has every July since 1892, my home parish in New York will be honoring St. Anne during the nine day novena and feast day, from July 17th to July 26th. The schedule is shown below.

During the ten-day period in 2011, I posted a series of essays on the iconography of Saint Anne. The list of topics is shown below. I refer readers to them. I've updated some with additional images, as I've found them during the past year.

1. Introduction, The Background of Joachim and Anne plus the Annunciation of Mary's Birth
2. The Meeting of Anne and Joachim at the Golden Gate
3. The Birth of Mary
4. The Presentation of Mary in the Temple
5. Saint Anne as Teacher (The Education of the Virgin Mary)
6. Anne, Root of the Tree of Salvation (the Anna selbdritt image)
7. Saint Anne, Grandmother
8. Saint Anne, Matriarch of the Holy Kindred
9. Saint Anne in the Communion of Saints
10. Saint Anne, Patron and Intercessor

I have also published additional images of Saint Anne in annual supplements. To see these click on the year or title:
Saint Anne at the Met
2014
2016
2017
2018
2019

2020

2022

Please note that there was no updates for 2023 or 2024. Circumstances have prevented that work. In 2023, a computer crash destroyed the image files and in 2024 a fall prevented any work being done. I am still trying to catch up.

In the meantime, you may want to join in the daily prayer to Saint Anne, recited during each day of the novena.

You can access the 2025 novena schedule here Eglise Saint Jean Baptiste.

Luca Vescia, Saint Anne and Mary
Italian, 1911
New York, Saint Jean Baptiste Church, Shrine of Saint Anne

Novena Prayer to Saint Anne
"O glorious Saint Ann, you are filled with compassion for those who invoke you and with love for those who suffer! Heavily burdened with the weight of my troubles, I cast myself at your feet and humbly beg of you to take the present intention which I recommend to you in your special care.

Please recommend it to your daughter, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and place it before the throne of Jesus, so that He may bring it to a happy issue. Continue to intercede for me until my request is granted. But, above all, obtain for me the grace one day to see my God face to face, and with you and Mary and all the saints to praise and bless Him for all eternity. Amen."

Saint Margaret of Antioch – Dragon Slayer

2025-07-20T05:39:00.000-04:00

Charles Alphonse Dufresnoy, St. Margaret of Antioch

French, 1656

Evreux, Musée d'Art Histoire et Archéologie

There are several women honored as saints or blesseds by the Catholic Church who are named Margaret. For example, there are St. Margaret of Scotland, St. Margaret of Cortona, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Blessed Margaret Pole and St. Margaret Clitherow. But all of them (and I myself) draw their names from a woman who may or may not have lived. This is St. Margaret of Antioch, who is remembered by the Church on July 20. She is little remembered today, but was a major saint in the Middle Ages through the Baroque.

This first St. Margaret was reputedly born in Syria, in the area around Antioch. Antioch is a city with a long, long Christian tradition. Indeed, it is in Antioch that the followers of the new way in Judaism were first called “Christians”. It is the city that saw Saints Peter and Paul preach and is the city of one of the best known of the very early Christian martyrs, St. Ignatius of Antioch. Ignatius was bishop of Antioch (the third ever, the first being St. Peter) in the latter decades of the first century and his letters tell us much about the beliefs and disciplines of the early Church. The letters we have were written while he was in transit, under guard, from Antioch to Rome, where he died, as he had expressly hoped, torn to pieces by the big cats of the new Flavian Amphitheatre (which we know as the Colosseum).1 With this background, it is not surprising that a young woman named Margaret, who was a Christian, may have been born near the city,

Guercino, St. Margaret of Antioch
Italian, c. 1630
Rome, Church of San Pietro in Vincoli

Margaret is, in fact, a name with deep roots in the Middle East, for it is derived from the Persian word for “pearl”. In many languages there is a close association between the words for pearl and daisy.2 In French, for example, daisies are known as “marguerites”. And women with the name Margaret have sometimes been gifted with the nickname “Daisy” in addition to the more common Margie, Maggie and Meg. So, Margaret, probably in the sense of pearl, would not be an unusual name to find in a Syrian woman.

Chances are that there may have been an early Christian woman martyr in Syria or southern Anatolia named Margaret during one of the persecutions that beset the Church in the Roman Empire. However, as with many of the early saints her story became embellished over time with stories of horrendous cruelties and fairytale elements. In Margaret’s case these elements came to completely overshadow her human story.

According to the legend, Margaret was born on Antioch near the end of the third century, the daughter of a priest of one of the pagan cults, presumably for one of the gods or goddesses of the Roman pantheon. Since her mother died when she was a baby, she was given to a wet nurse to raise. The woman happened to be both a wool worker and a Christian and introduced Margaret to both.

On her coming of age, she was requested in marriage by a high ranking Roman official. She refused him and refused to renounce her faith as well. For this she was tortured (in some pretty horrific ways) and thrown into prison. In prison she was attacked by Satan in two forms. First, as a handsome young man who attempted to persuade her to surrender to the pleasures of the flesh. Having failed at that, he decided to try terror, assumed the form of a dragon and swallowed her whole.

Nothing daunted, Margaret either cut her way out of the dragon with a cross she had been holding when swallowed, or was miraculously released by the spontaneous explosion of the dragon when she made the sign of the cross from within his stomach. For this reason, she is most frequently shown holding a cross and with a dead or dying dragon at her feet.3

However, this reprieve was only temporary. She was eventually beheaded during the persecution of Diocletian (303-305).4

Richard de Montbaston, Martyrdom of Margaret of Antioch
From a Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine
French (Paris), 1348
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Français 241, fol.159v

Margaret was an extremely popular saint during the medieval period and remained so into the Renaissance and Baroque periods. She is the patron saint of a number of things and events, including pregnant women and childbirth. Further, she is also one of the three women martyrs among the so-called "Fourteen Holy Helpers", early saints who were believed to have great power as helpers to those who invoked their intercession.

In art we see different aspects of her life. Sometimes she is shown as a shepherdess or wool worker, a reference to the supposed occupation of her foster mother.

Mahiet and Collaborators, St. Margaret of Antioch as a Shepherdess
From a Speculum historiale by Vincentius Bellovacensis
French (Paris), c. 1335
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Arsenal 5080, fol. 288r

Jean Fouquet, St. Margaret of Antioch Spinning Wool
From the Hours of Etienne Chevalier
French (Tours), c. 1450-1460
Paris, Musée du Louvre
MS MI 1093

*Anonymous, Olybrius Sees Margaret Tending Sheep
German, Early 16th Century
Ottobeuren, Abbey Art Collection

Francisco de Zurbaran, St. Margaret of Antioch as a Shepherdess
Spanish, c. 1630-1634
London, National Gallery

There are also a few images of her rejection of a suitor, which attracted the attention of the Roman authorities and led to her martyrdom.

* Anonymous, Margaret Rejects the Courtship of Olybrius
German, Early 16th Century
Ottobeuren, Abbey Art Collection

* Melchior Puchner, St. Margaret of Antioch Rejects Olybrius's Courtship
German, c. 1737
Bayrischzell, Church of St. Margaret

At other times it is the scenes of her eventual torture and martyrdom that we are shown.

Master of the Roman de Fauvel, Martyrdom of St. Margaret
From a Vies de Saints
French (Paris), c. 1300-1325
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Français 183, fol. 86v

This miniature shows both her escape from the dragon and her martyrdom.

Lodovico Carracci, Martyrdom of St. Margaret
Italian, 1616
Mantua, San Maurizio, Cappella di Santa Margherita

* Melchior Puchner, St. Margaret of Antioch Is Tortured with Scourges and Torches
German, c. 1737
Bayrischzell, Church of St. Margaret

* Melchior Puchner, Martyrdom of St. Margaret of Antioch
German, c. 1737
Bayrischzell, Church of St. Margaret

At times she is seen in her place in heaven as a martyr saint. Here the dragon may appear as one of her attributes but always as a subdued, barely hinted at presence. What is more important is the cross or martyr's palm that she holds. She also is frequently shown holding a book.

St. Margaret of Antioch
Spanish (Burgos), c.1275-1325
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

St. Margaret of Antioch
Catalan (Lleida), 1330-1340
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection

St. Margaret of Antioch

From the Cologne Missal

German (Cologne), 1150

Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France

MS Latin 12055, fol. 164v

Rogier van der Weyden, Saints Margaret and Apollonia
Flemish, c. 1445-1450
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Jacques de Besançon, The Court of Heaven

From a Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine

French (Paris), c. 1480-1490

Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France

MS Français 244, fol.156

In this image Margaret takes her place among the front ranks of the female martyrs. She stands in the first row, wearing a dark blue dress and brownish cloak and carrying a cross over her right shoulder.

Annibale Carracci, St. Margaret of Antioch

Italian, c. 1597-1599

Rome, Church of Santa Caterina della Rosa

Peter Candid, St. Margaret of Antioch
Flemish, c. 1600
Private Collection

Jan Brueghel I, St. Margaret of Antioch
Flemish, c. 1600-1625
Private Collection

* Anonymous Bavarian Painter, St. Margaret of Antioch
German, 1722
Elbach, Church of St. Andrew

Ernest Hebert, St. Margaret of Antioch
French, c. 1877
Paris, Musée national Ernest Hebert

But, primarily she is seen in relation to her victory over the devil/dragon. These images come from all the time periods. Sometimes the dragon is a truly fierce monster, but quite frequently he is seen almost as a pet. Sometimes, Margaret is seen to be popping out of the dragon. At other times she has already been completely liberated. At still others she is standing victoriously atop the beast.

St. Margaret Emerging from the dragon
From the Livre d'images de Madame Marie
Belgian (Hainaut), c. 1285-1290
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Nouvelle acquisition française 16251, fol. 100r

St. Margaret Emerging from the Dragon
From the Sermons of Maurice de Sully
Italian (Milan or Genoa), c. 1320-1330
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Français 187, fol. 41r

Workshop of Agnolo Gaddi, St. Margaret of Antioch
Italian, c.1390
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this image Margaret is being ejected by the dragon by mouth rather than bursting through his belly.

Master of Marguerite d'Orléans, St. Margaret of Antioch
From the Heures de Marguerite d'Orléans
French (Rennes), c. 1430
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 1156 B, fol. 176r

I suggest that you click on this image to enlarge it so you won't miss the detail of Margaret as a shepherdess in the right side of the margin and the two rather charming little dragons in the bottom margin who are looking up approvingly at the devil's discomfiture.

St. Margaret of Antioch
French (Toulouse), c. 1475
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jean Bourdichon, St. Margaret of Antioch
From the Grandes heures d'Anne de Bretagne
French (Tours), c. 1503-1508
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 9474, 205v

The dragons in these two images above seem almost domesticated, almost pet-like. Obviously, this was one little bit of fantasy that painters and sculptors (and even potters) could relate to, a kind of comic relief in their usual work of preparing images of the martyr saints that were often far from comic.

Workshop of Maestro Giorgio Andreoli, St. Margaret of Antioch
Majolica dish
Italian, 1527
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lehman Collection

However, Raphael (known through several copies by his students, such as Giulio Romano) and Titian suggest that there may have been a struggle to escape from the dragon.

Giulio Romano (after Raphael), St. Margaret of Antioch
Italian, c. 1518
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Titian, St. Margaret of Antioch
Italian, 1565
Madrid, Museo del Prado

At the end of the seventeenth century, an artist working in the circle of Giacomo Ceruti imagined the vanquished demon as partially returned to human form, a much more unsettling image for we see Satan resuming his appearance as a fallen angel.

Studio of Giacomo Ceruti, St. Margaret of Antioch
Itaian, c. 1601-1623
Private Collection

Even given the comic relief aspect, there is a deeper reference here, one with a Biblical foundation. For, it refers to what had been foretold in the book of Genesis, when God rebuked the "snake" who tempted Eve to sin "Then the LORD God said to the snake: Because you have done this, cursed are you among all the animals, tame or wild; On your belly you shall crawl, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel." (Genesis 3:14-15)

The dragon that devoured Margaret is the same snake that tempted Eve, both are personifications of Satan, the Devil, the Enemy who is both an enemy to God and to humanity. Margaret is here seen as a reflection of the Virgin Mary, the quintessential "woman" of Genesis and of Revelation and the Second Eve, who, with the offspring of both her body (Jesus) and her faith (Margaret, the saints, and by extension, all Christians) will strike at his head. 5

Occasionally, images of Saint Margaret may have no references to any aspect of the story of her life, her martyrdom or her miraculous escape from the dragon, but may purely present her as an intercessor before God for a human person. Such an image is the unusual one below. In the lowest level of the picture we see a woman lying down, attended by others, some of whom are praying, hinting at a scene of childbirth. In the middle section we see a king and queen giving thanks for the baby which the queen holds. In the upper level we see St. Margaret kneeling in supplication before Christ, surrounded by angels both adults and cherubs. One of the cherubs holds her martyr's palm, while a small group holds the cross of Christ. Margaret's dragon is shown as flying off to the right at the border between the upper and middle sections, while an adult angel holds a cornucopia of flowers which he is about the send to earth. The subject appears to be the birth of an heir to the aged Louis XIV. This probably refers to the birth of the future Louis XV, who inherited his great-grandfather's throne at the age of five.

* Joseph Hartmann, Miracle of Saint Margaret of Antioch
German, 1757
Baumberg, Church of Saint Margaret

* Indicates new images.

_________________________________________________________

For St. Ignatius of Antioch see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07644a.htm, which includes links to his letters. O'Connor, John Bonaventure. "St. Ignatius of Antioch." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 20 Jul. 2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret
The story of the dragon was too much of a strain on the credulity of Jacobus de Voragine, who was quite happy with a great many other fantastic stories. In his The Golden Legend, written in he says “This swallowing and breaking of the belly of the dragon is said that it is apocryphal.” From The GOLDEN LEGEND or LIVES of the SAINTS, Compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, 1275 First Edition Published 1470, ENGLISHED by WILLIAM CAXTON, First Edition 1483, VOLUME FOUR. From the Temple Classics Edited by F.S. ELLIS First issue of this Edition, 1900 Reprinted 1922, 1931< http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/goldenlegend/GoldenLegend-Volume4.asp&gt
MacRory, Joseph. "St. Margaret." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 20 Jul. 2016 .
For more on the connections between the snake, the Virgin Mary and both Genesis and Revelations, see the articles "Annunciation – The World Created Anew" and "The Immaculate Conception"

I Am Your Brother, Joseph

2025-07-09T03:04:00.001-04:00

+Attributed to Andrea Schavone, Joseph Judging His Brothers
Italian, 16th Century
Chambery, Musee des Beaux-Arts

This year the daily Mass readings for July 9th and 10th tell the Old Testament story of Joseph, he who was sold into slavery by his brothers, became a high ranking Egyptian official and eventually became reconciled to his family when they came to beg for food during a famine in Palestine. The climactic moment comes in the passages which form the reading for Thursday when, after testing them in previous passages, Joseph reveals his identity and tells his brothers

"I am your brother Joseph, whom you once sold into Egypt.
But now do not be distressed, and do not reproach yourselves for having sold me here. It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you.
For two years now the famine has been in the land, and for five more years tillage will yield no harvest.
God, therefore, sent me on ahead of you to ensure for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance.
So it was not really you but God who had me come here; and he has made of me a father to Pharaoh, lord of all his household, and ruler over the whole land of Egypt.” (Genesis 45:5-8)

The story of Joseph is, of course, a familiar one. But, rather surprisingly, there are not as many depictions of the climactic scene in art as there are for the earlier episodes of his betrayal by his brothers, who sold him into slavery, and his rise in Egyptian society. Many focus on the incident in which he had to repulse the romantic advances of the wife of the Egyptian official Potiphar (Genesis 39). This is probably no surprise because tales of spicy advances have always been highly favored, and the reversal of usual roles in the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife makes for a nice variation on the usual formula.

While looking for images to illustrate the readings about Joseph and his reunion with his repentant family I couldn’t help but notice that, in addition to demonstrating, by their small numbers, that “sex sells” over family reconciliation, the images of Joseph and his brothers also illustrate an interesting development in western European art.

Images of Joseph as the high Egyptian official and in his meeting with his brothers seem to cluster in the later history of European art. And, within that cluster there is a difference between images made before 1800 and those made after 1800.

Images Before 1800

The earlier images tell a reasonably straightforward story, based on the biblical account. They make little effort to set the incident in any particular time period or place. The images are so lacking in special decorative motifs that they could even conceivably be read as records of recent history.

+Joseph Recognized By His Brothers
From the Psalter of St. Louis
Franch (Paris), c. 1270
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 10525, fol. 25v

* Joseph Forgiving His Brothers
From a Bible historiee
English, c. Late 13th-Mid 14th Century
Manchester, The John Rylands Library
MS French 5, fol. 39v

* Joseph Revealing Himself to His Brothers
From an Ancient History
Latin Kingdom (Acre), Last Quarter of the 13th Century
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 20125, fol. 70r

+ Master of the Roman de Fauvel, Joseph Revealing Himself to His Brothers
From a Bible historiale byr Guiard des Moulins
French (Paris), c.1325-1350
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 156, fol. 40r

* Master of the Roman de Fauvel, Joseph Revealing Himself to His Brothers
From a Speculum historiale by Vincent of Beauvais
French (Paris), c. 1333-1334
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 316, fol. 75v

* Anonymous, Joseph Reveals Himself to His Brothers
From a Histoires bibliques
French (Saint-Quentin), c. 1350
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 1753, fol. 24r

* Stefano di Alberto Azzi, Joseph Meeting His Brothers
From an Ancient History
Italian (Bologna), c. 1353-1359
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Francais 168, fol. 68r

* Master of the Livre du Sacre and Workshop, Joseph Meeting His Brothers
From a Speculum historiale by Vincent of Beauvais
French (Paris), c. 1370-1380
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS NAF 15939, fol. 43r

The image of Egypt in Renaissance and Baroque works is of a fantasy land. The settings and costumes of the characters are neither clothing contemporary with the painter nor based on any historical model. They suggest a theatrical vision of the “East”.

Between 1515 and 1517 the painters Bacchiacca and Pontormo were commissioned to paint the story of Joseph on the walls of a room within a Florentine palace that were being decorated as a wedding gift for the owner and his new bride. Three of the paintings illustrated this last episode in the life of Joseph. All the paintings are now in the National Gallery in London.

* Bacchiacca (Francesco d'Ubertino), Joseph Receives His Brothers
Italian, c. 1515
London, National Gallery

* Bacchiacca (Francesco d'Ubertino), Joseph Pardons His Brothers
Italian, c. 1515
London, National Gallery

+ Jacopo Pontormo, Joseph in Egypt
Italian, c. 1516
London, National Gallery

* Workshop of Antoine Conrade after a Woodcut by Bernard Salomon, Joseph Forgives His Brothers
French, c. 1630-1645
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Giovanni Battista Gaulli (Baciccio), Joseph Recognized By His Brothers
Italian, c.1680
Ajaccio, Palais Flesch, Musee des Beaux-Arts

Antoine Coypel, Joseph Recognized By His Brothers
French, c. 1730-1731
Paris, Mobilier Nationale

* Franz Anton Maulbertsch, Joseph and His Brothers
Austrian, c. 1745-1750
Budapest, Szépmûvészeti Múzeum

* Peter Cornelius, The Recognition of Joseph by His Brothers
German, c. 1816-1817
Berlin, Nationalgalerie

Similar costuming could have applied to stories from Rome or Persia (with turbans). There is nothing very specifically Egyptian about them. In light of the fact that Egyptian antiquities were relatively well known in Europe between the fall of the Roman Empire and about 1800 (think of the obelisks in Rome, for instance) this is a bit puzzling. The evidence was there, it just wasn't being used.

Images After 1800

The visual image changes that occur after 1800, as exemplified by the undated painting of Joseph Recognized By His Brothers by Francois Gerard, are striking.

Francois Gerard, Joseph Recognized By His Brothers
French, c. 1800
Angers, Musee des Beaux-Arts

Gerard is best known as the painter of the courts of Napoleon I and his Bourbon successors, Louis XVIII and Charles X. His career spans the first half of the 19th century. His Joseph inhabits a world with definite Egyptian details. There are sphinxes on the arms of his chair and above his head on the terrace of a building. He himself wears a nemes headdress. The difference, as they say, is in the details. But what has made the change? In a single word, Napoleon.

In July 1798 then-General Napoleon Bonaparte, at the orders of the Directory then running France following the disastrous years of the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, led a French army across the Mediterranean to land at Alexandria. The intent of the mission was to damage Britain by cutting into her trade routes through the ports of Palestine and the Levant. (The Suez Canal did not exist at this time, remember.) France simultaneously attempted to tie the British down in their home islands by sending an invasion force to Ireland (as part of the ill-fated 1798 rebellion there). All went well at first for Bonaparte. He won several battles over the Mamluk warriors who then held Egypt and took control of the country. He also conquered parts of Palestine.

Antoine-Jean Gros, Battle of the Pyramids
French, 1810
Versailles, Chateau

With the French army came scholars whose original intent had been to bring the Egyptians up to date with the Revolution, much as the French army had done in European countries that it had conquered in the years since 1789. However, these scholars soon fell under the spell of the older Egyptian civilization whose relics they saw all around them. Archaeology was then in its infancy, having begun more or less in earnest with the discovery of Pompeii in the late 18th century. It is they who began the study of ancient Egypt that resulted in the development of Egyptian archaeology. There were also artists among them who set to work sketching and painting the sights that they saw.

In August 1798 the French navy was virtually destroyed by Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson at the Battle of the Nile and the French army was thereby cut off from both resupply and wholesale evacuation from Egypt. Although continuing to function well for another year, it was eventually evident that they could not hope to keep control of the country for very long. So, as he would do again in 1812 in Russia, Napoleon decided to cut his own loses and publicize his victories in advance of eventual defeat. He quietly slipped out of Egypt back to France. He returned to a France in crisis. The Directory was near collapse and a coup was planned against it. His position as Victor over Egypt gave him brilliant notoriety and shortly after his return he became the leading member of the Consulate that replaced the deposed Directory. By the end of the year he was First Consul. He went on from there to become First Consul for Life and, finally, Emperor.

As for the French army and French scholars left behind in Egypt–their fate was less glorious. Without adequate resupply the army's ability to continue to hold Egypt diminished dramatically and Egypt was captured by the British in 1801. At that time many of the discoveries made by the scholars fell into the hands of the British, including the famous Rosetta Stone.

The Rosetta Stone
Egyptian, 196 BC
London, British Museum

This stele with its text written in ancient hieroglyphs, in demotic Egyptian and in ancient Greek became the key to the problem of deciphering the hieroglyphs and is today in the British Museum, not the Louvre.

However, the information that did come back to France with the scholars and artists set off a craze for all things Egyptian and before long there were Egyptian tea services, Egyptian chairs, sphinx ornamented furniture, Egyptian themed jewelry. Frequently, items of Egyptomania sat side by side in the homes of the fashionable with equally important Roman Revival objects.

Charles Percier, Egyptian caryatid and design for decorative panel
French, c.1800
Paris, Musee du Louvre, Departement des Arts graphiques

The fact that most of the artifacts found by Napoleon's scholars went to Britain set off a wave of similar Egyptomania there as well. It has been part of our world ever since, ebbing and flowing as new discoveries, such as the tomb of King Tutanhkamun, come to light.

In the realm of painting the Egyptian craze set in motion the search for the exotic that marks the work of so many painters from the second quarter of the 19th century onward. Painters were no longer content to merely imagine exotic locales. They went there to sketch. Examples abound in later 19th-century painting.

The Swiss-born Gleyre, the teacher of many of the major Impressionists, produced images such as the Egyptian Temple of 1840.

Charles Gleyre, Egyptian Temple
Swiss, 1840
Lausanne, Musee Cantonale des Beaux-Arts

Jean-Leon Gerome went to Egypt in 1856 and, from his experiences there produced Napoleon Before the Sphinx.

Jean-Leon Gerome, Napoleon Before the Sphinx
French, 1867
San Simeon, CA, Hearst Castle

The story of Joseph also received more realistic treatment. By the last decades of the 19th century paintings of his story are set in a recognizably ancient Egypt.

Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Joseph, Overseer of the Pharoah's Granaries
English, 1874
Private Collection

Such pictures as Joseph, Overseer of the Pharaoh's Granaries by the Dutch-British artist, Lawrence Alma-Tadema,

and Joseph Reveals Himself to His Brothers by the Franco-British, James Tissot, inhabit an entirely different world from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque images.

+ James Tissot, Joseph Reveals Himself to His Brothers
French, c. 1896-1902
New York, The Jewish Museum

Selected images refreshed and additional images added, 2025.

+ Indicates a refreshed image

* Indicates a new image

The Sacred Heart of Jesus—An Iconographic Introduction

2025-06-27T13:58:00.001-04:00

Typical 20th Century "holy card" image of the Sacred Heart

Most Catholics are aware of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the kitschy images that currently go with it. According to most information about it the devotion dates back to the late seventeenth century, to the apparition of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, a Visitation nun living in a Visitation monastery at Paray-le-Monial in the Franche-Comte region of east-central France. In these apparitions Jesus is said to have appeared to her and, among other things, requested that pictures of His Sacred Heart should be set up and venerated in churches and homes. He also made several promises that people who venerate His Heart would receive special graces for their lives.¹

In addition, like the reverence shown to the Body and Blood of Christ, the devotion to the Sacred Heart calls attention to the “burning love” for humanity that led the Second Person of the Holy Trinity to become a man and to die the sacrificial death of Calvary for the salvation of fallen creation.²As such it is a powerful image for meditation on the love of God for His people. However, the recent “traditional” images that have been associated with the devotion have obscured its immense power.

The image of the Sacred Heart underwent many changes from the time of Saint Margaret Mary to the present until it became a piece of Catholic kitsch, off-putting to many. As one description that I read recently described it “So often one looks at pictures of The Sacred Heart and sees a female face, even though it has a beard!”³ This is, unfortunately, often true. But it wasn’t always so.

In fact, the image of the Sacred Heart has a long history, going back at least 200 years prior to Saint Margaret Mary’s visions. Indeed, the back history of the image may have contributed greatly to the image she and her followers promoted. Very little about the image was actually new.

From the Sixth Century to the Middle Ages

It all begins with images of the crucified Jesus being pierced by a Roman spear, causing blood to issue from His wounded side, and with the image of the Man of Sorrows, the devotional image in which the figure of Christ, scourged and crowned with thorns, displays His wounds for veneration.

+Crucifixion
From the Rabbula Gospels
Syrian (Beth Zagba), c.586
Florence, Bibliotheca Medicea-Laurenziana
MS. Plut. I. 56, fol. 12v-13r

+Crucifixion
From the Sacramentary of Gellone
French, c. 775-800
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Latin 12048, fol. 143v

+Last Judgment with Christ as the Man of Sorrows Surrounded by Angels Holding the Instruments of the Passion
From A jugement et des xv signes
Northern French, c. 1250-1300
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Arsenal 3516, fol. 154v (detail)

The Man of Sorrows

Most especially it goes back to those Man of Sorrows images in which Christ is shown with open eyes, engaging the viewer. In these “awake” images the figure of Christ often calls attention to His wounded side.

+Master Francke, The Man of Sorrows
German, c. 1430
Hamburg, Kunsthalle

+Petrus Christus, The Man of Sorrows
Flemish, c. 1444-1448
Birmingham, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

Hans Memling, The Man of Sorrows
German, After 1490
Esztergom, Christian Museum

Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, The Man of Sorrows
Dutch, c. 1510
Antwerp, Museum Mayer van den Bergh

Devotion to the Five Wounds of Christ

The emphasis on the Crucifixion and to the wounded side of Christ resulted in the rise of devotion to the Five Wounds of Christ, which was a very wide spread late medieval devotion. The five wounds are to the hands, feet and heart of Christ, since the spear thrust to His side reached His heart.4 We possess many records of the popularity of this image in the period just before and after the beginning date for the rise of Protestantism in 1517.

Wound of Christ Actual Size
From a Book of Hours
France (Verdun or Paris), c.1375
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
MS M90, fol. 130r

This image combines a picture of the wound from the lance in the heart of Christ with the images of Christ as the Man of Sorrows. It is noted that the wound is depicted full size as it was made.

*The Sacred Heart with the Instruments of the Passion
German, 15th Century
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum

This image combines the wounded heart of Christ, opened by the centurion's lance, with the other instruments of the Passion. At the bottom, the Risen Christ appears to his mother, Mary.

*Masters of the Delft Grisailles, The Five Wounds of Christ
From the Loftie Hours
Dutch (Delft), c. 1450
Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum
MS W.165, fol.110v

Here the wounds are represented by the streams of blood that flowed from them.

+The Pierced Heart of Jesus
German Woodcut, c. 1450-1499
Washington, National Gallery of Art

+Composite Window of English Stained Glass

English, 15th Century

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

This composite window, made up of panels from several locations, includes three panels with the Five Wounds, showing how ubiquitous these panels must have been in English churches before the Henrician/Edwardian Reformation. The three panels are: top right panel (shown below in detail), bottom panels: second from the left (also shown below in detail) and second from the right.

*The Five Wounds of Christ
Composite Window of Stained Glass
English, 15th Century
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Five Wounds of Christ
Composite Window of Stained Glass
English, 15th Century
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Angel with the Five Wounds of Christ
Stained Glass
English, 15th Century
Glastonbury, Abbey

*Hans Winhart, Stained Glass Panel with an Angel Holding a Shield Bearing the Five Wounds of Christ
German, c. 1485
Munich, Cathedral of Our Lady

The Five Wounds of Christ
From a Psalter
Dutch (Den Bosch, Monastery of Marienwater), 1468
The Hague, Koninklijk Bibliotheek
MS KB134 C 60, fol. 245v

+The Five Wounds of Christ
Single Leaf from a Manuscript
German, 1469
Austin , University of Texas at Austin
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center

*The Five wounds with the Wounded Christ Child in the Sacred Heart
German, c. 1475-1480
Washington, National Gallery of Art

+The Five Wounds of Christ with the Christ Child in the Sacred Heart
German, c. 1475-1480
Washington, National Gallery of Art

+The Five Wounds of Christ
German, 15th Century
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Drawings and Prints Department

The Sacred Heart of Jesus
From a Prayer Roll
English, c. 1495-1505
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
MS G 39, fol. 5r

Two of the Five Wounds of Christ
From a Book of Hours
Flemish (Bruges), c.1500
London, British Library
MS King's 9, fol. 143v-144

As has been demonstrated by Eamon Duffy and other historians, the devotion to the Five Wounds was extremely strong and tenacious. In 1536 Catholics in northern England revolted against the religious changes which had followed King Henry VIII’s break with Rome in what is known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. They adopted the Five Wounds as their symbol.5

The Five Wounds of Christ
Page from a Medical and Religious Miscellany
English, c. 1475-1550
London, Trustees of the British Library
MS Sloane 1584, fol. 26v-27

+Sigmund Grimm, The Five Wounds of Christ
German (Augsburg), c.1520
London, Trustees of the British Museum

*Jean d'Ypres, Mass of Saint Gregory
From the Tres petites heures d'Anne de Bretagne
Flemish,(Ypres), c. 1497-1498
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS NAL 3120, fol. 156v

In this depiction of the Mass of Saint Gregory, Christ appears as the Man of Sorrows, as he does in all such images. However, what makes this image different is that Christ is shown standing. He points to the wound in his side and, at the bottom of the page two angels display His wounded heart. Interestingly, note that the heart is already encircled by the crown of thorns, nearly two hundred years before the usually supposed date for this motif to appear. Please see the detail below.

*Jean d'Ypres, Mass of Saint Gregory
From the Tres petites heures d'Anne de Bretagne
Flemish,(Ypres), c. 1497-1498
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS NAL 3120, fol. 156v (detail)

+Simon Bening, Miraculous Mass of the Five Wounds of Christ
From the Da Costa Hours
Flemish (Bruges), c. 1510-1520
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
MS M399, fol. 36v

Simon Bening, Worship of the Five Wounds of Christ
From the Prayer Book of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg
Flemish, c. 1525-1530
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum
MS Ludwig IX 19, fol. 335v

The Heart Alone

During the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the wounds to hands and feet ceased to be included and the focus shifted to the wound to the Heart alone. Sometimes this appeared as a devotion to the side wound by itself and sometimes the Heart. At this point the Heart still resembled a Valentine’s Day heart, that is, a flat, two-dimensional representation of a heart.

+Lucas Cranach Elder, Adoration of the Sacred Heart
German, 1505
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Drawings and Prints Department

By the end of the sixteenth century flames had begun to appear. Initially they began to appear around the heart and then as if emerging from it.

Antonie Wierix, Adoration of the Sacred Heart
of Jesus
Flemish, 1595
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum

Engraving after Martin De Vos, Charity
Flemish, c. 1600
Vendome, Musée de Vendome

Abraham Aubry after Johann Toussyn
The Five Wounds of Christ
German, c. 1651-1700
Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum

Matthias Greuter, Blessed Philip Neri (now a Saint)
German, 1606
Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana

The Angel at the left holds a flaming heart. It is unclear whether this is a reference to the ardent heart of Saint Philip Neri or the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I include it as representative of the addition of flames to the heart image.

Enter Saint Margaret Mary

This is the point at which Saint Margaret Mary’s apparitions occur. The first image she created, in 1685, belongs in this lineage. The only really new element is the crown of thorns, which she shows as if it were a wreath encircling the heart.

Marguerite Marie Alacoque, First Image of the Sacred Heart by Saint Margaret Mary
French, 1685
Paray-le-Monial, Sisters of the Visitation

From there the image underwent several changes. While some pictures retained the crown of thorns as a wreath, others applied it directly to the heart or omitted it altogether. Still others combined it with a new image of the Sacred Heart of Mary, which showed a similar heart pierced by a sword and encircled with a wreath of roses.

The Adoration of the Sacred Heart
French, 1690
Rennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts

In this engraving Saint Margaret Mary (who is holding a flaming heart, possibly her own) and a Bishop kneel in adoration before Margaret Mary's image of the Sacred Heart. Below the Sacred Heart, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph also kneel in adoration. They hold a banner which reads "Consecrate yourself to the Heart of my Son, His grace will lead you to the door of Salvation".

The Adoration of the Sacred Heart

French, 18th Century

Rennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts

In this image Christ appears as one of the Trinity, separate from His heart, which is adored by angels.. The crown of thorns surrounds an image of Christ Crucified in the center of the Heart.

Pierre Drevet, Saint Jean Eudes
French, c. 1700
Versailles, Chateaux de Versailles et de Trianon

Shortly before the apparitions to Saint Margaret Mary began Saint Jean Eudes had also been encouraging veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The caption reads "Eudes (Jean) Founder of many Seminaries and Celebrated Missionary, died 1680".

N. Chasteau, The Image of the Sacred Heart
From a Lay Prayer book for Mass at the Agnus Dei
French, 1700-1750
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Nouvelle acquisition latine 84, fol. 43

N. Chasteau, The Image of the Sacred Heart
From a Lay Prayer book for Mass at the Litany of the Virgin
French, 1700-1750
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS Nouvelle acquisition latine 84, fol. 96

A Realistic Heart

Another development was in the form of the heart itself. In the course of the eighteenth century it went from being a two-dimensional Valentine heart to an anatomically correct heart rendered in scientific detail.

*Altarpiece, The Sacred Heart with Instruments of the Passion
German, 18th Century
Dillingen, Franzisanerinnernkloster

Michael Christoph Grabenberger and Michael Georg Grabenberger,
The Sacred Heart of Jesus
German, c. 1700
Lambach (AU), Benedictine Monastery

Angels Adore the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Presence of the Trinity
French, c. 1700-1725
Paray-le-Monial, Musée du Hieron

*Attributed to Johan Rieger, The Father, the Sacred Heart and the Holy Spirit Adored by Angels and the Four Continents
German, 1705
Kaisheim, Church of the Assumption

*The Sacred Heart
German, c. 1705
Violau, Church of Saint Michael

This interesting painting presents the image of the Sacred Heart as a figure of Christ Himself: on the Cross being pierced by the centurion's sward. Meanwhile, in a cave-like area to the side we see the figures of the righteous from the Old Testament awaiting the moment of their deliverance.

*Johann Jakob Herkomer, The Sacred Heart with the Instruments of the Passion
German, 1709
Füssen, Church of Saint Mang

*Johann Maier, The Sacred Heart Adored by Cherubs
German, 1718
Maihingen, Monastery Church of Mary Immaculate

*Johann Georg Bergmueller, The Holy Trinity, with Christ Represented by the Sacred Heart, Adored by Angels and the Continents
German,1721
Eichstätt, Church of Notre Dame of the Sacred Heart

*Donato Polli, The Sacred Heart
Italian, 1721
Eichstätt, Church of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart

*Jacob Carl Stauder, The Sacred Heart with the Instruments of the Passion Adored by the Heart of a Believer
German, 1721
Pierlenhofen, Church of the Assumption

This image shows the Crucified Christ, symbolized by the Sacred Heart pierced by the instruments of the Passion and suspended on the cross. In the lower left, the heart of a believer, also on fire with divine love, rushes on wings to follow Him. The motto "Trahe me post te" literally means "Drag me after you", or more poetically "Pull me toward you", which is the action shown in the image as Heart speaks to heart.

Blue Monochrome Ceramic Plaque
Angels Adoring the Sacred Heart of Jesus
French (Sevres), c. 1725-1751
Sevres, Cité de la ceramique

Charles Natoire, The Sacred Heart of Jesus
Frontispiece of De Cultu Sacro Sancti. Cordis Dei ac Domini Nostri J. Christi by Joseph de Galliffet
French, 1726
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France

The very realistic image of the Sacred Heart was a bit too realistic for most viewers. Although the explicit anatomical details of the heart were not reproduced by others, the characteristic shape of the human heart was henceforward the preferred image. The amount of detail diminished almost immediately after it was introduced, probably indicating that people were a bit uncomfortable with that level of reality, but the shape of the heart remained changed. Going forward, in the majority of cases, the heart would retain the actual shape of a real heart.

An interesting case study of the spread of images is this comparison between the hyper-realistic Natoire engraving above and the painting below by the Mexican artist, Miguael Cabrera. The realistic details of the heart are closely followed, as are the surrounding flames and winged cherub heads in adoration. Since this image was the frontispiece for a book, it is easy to understand how it made its way across the Atlantic and from a French to a colonial Spanish milieu within thirty years.

Miguel Cabrera, The Sacred Heart of Jesus
Mexican, c. 1756
Mexico City, Fundacion Cultural Daniel Liebsohn, A. C.

In addition, the position of the Crown of Thorns changed. In the early images, based on the drawing by Saint Margaret Mary, the Crown had been a frame against which the Heart was positioned. In the course of the eighteenth century the Crown began to be depicted as wrapped around the Heart. This change added a new dimension of suffering to the depiction of the burning Heart. This became the nearly universal image of the Sacred Heart from this time forward.

Bartolomeo Letterini, The Sacred Heart Adored by the Madonna and Saints
Italian, c. 1730
Venice, Church of San Canciano

Ferdinand Delamonce, The Adoration of the Sacred Heart
"Venient et Adorabunt" (Frontispiece) of L'excellence de la devotion au Coeur adorable de Jesus-Christ by Joseph de Galliffet
Published at Lyon, 1733
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France

+Charles Lamy, Religious of Notre Dame de la Charite du Refuge in Adoration before the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary
French, 1735
Tours, Musée des Beaux-Arts

*Josaph Amonte, The Sacred Heart Adored by Cherubs
Austrian, c. 1745-1750
Rein, (AT) Monastery Church

The Sacred Heart of Jesus
German, c. 1754
Winnweiler, Pilgrimage Church of the Holy Cross

+Corrado Giaquinto, The Adoration of the Holy Trinity with the Sacred Heart
Italian, 1754
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

*Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner, The Sacred Heart Adored by Angels
German, 1757
Bergen bei Neuberg, Church of the Holy Cross

Corrado Giaquinto, Saint Margaret Mary Alacocque Contemplating the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Italian, c. 1765
Private Collection

Jose de Paez, Saints Ignatius of Loyola and Louis Gonzaga Adoring the Sacred Heart
Mexican, c.1770
Another variation on the book illustration by Natoire from 1756.

The Sacred Heart with Instruments of the Passion and the Pelican in Her Piety
Unknown origin and location, 18th Century

*Tabernacle Door with the Sacred Heart and the Pelican in Her Piety
German, 1765
Dillingen, Church of the Assumption

The two images above combine the image of the Sacred Heart with the image of the pelican in her piety. The image of the pelican, who pierces her own breast in order to provide her blood as food for her hatchlings, has a long tradition in western Christian art. It always refers to Christ's self-giving love through his death and resurrection and through the Eucharistic food of his body and blood. The fact that the second image is located on the door of a tabernacle, the place which houses the Eucharistic Body of Christ as food for the sick, reinforces the reference.

Jose de Paez, The Sacred Heart Adored by Angels
Mexican, c. 1775
Mexico City, Museo Soumaya
And yet a third variation on the Natoire illustration.

The Exterior Heart

Up to this point all the focus had been on the heart of Jesus as a freestanding, disembodied, entity, alluding to, but not showing the figure of Christ. A further development of the eighteenth century was the introduction of what would become the most common image of the Sacred Heart, one in which the image of the Sacred Heart appeared at the same time as the figure of Christ, appearing to be outside His body.

Pompeo Batoni, The Sacred Heart of Jesus
Italian, 1767
Rome, Church of the Gesù

This image seems to have been introduced by the artist Pompeo Batoni in a painting for the altar of a chapel in the Gesù, the mother church of the Jesuit order, in Rome. Its location in this prominent place guaranteed that the image would have wide influence. As it did. It is the ancestor of most of the images since it appeared. The principal innovation in this image is the combination of an engaging Jesus, fully clothed, offering His Heart to the viewer.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus
Italian, 1780
Rome, Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella

The Sacred Heart of Jesus
Italian, 1800
Rome, Church of San Giovanni in Laterano

The prominence of these images, in major churches in Rome, the center of the Catholic faith, ensured its spread far and wide.

As can be seen by the two examples below, this spread occurred quickly and affected even provincial artists with lesser skills.

*Anonymous, An Angel Offering Ardent Hearts to the Sacred Heart
German, c. 1770
Elbach, Church of the Holy Blood

*Anonymous, Madonna and Child of the Sacred Heart
German, c. 1770
Eichstätt, Church of the Guardian Angel

The Classic Image Continues

Although this image completely dominated the imagery that most people came into contact with through lithographs, sometimes hand colored, there was also a more classic strain in which the Heart was disclosed, separately from the figure of Jesus.

Manuel Salvador Carmona, The Adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Spanish, 1804
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

Thomas Kelly, The Adoration of the Sacred Heart
American, c.1874
Washington, Library of Congress

Thomas Kelly, A Consecration to the Sacred Heart
American, c.1874
Washington, Library of Congress

Stained Glass Window of the Sacred Heart
American, 20th Century

The Dedication of France

One of the requests of Jesus which Saint Margaret Mary revealed, was that King Louis XIV make a dedication of France to the Sacred Heart. This was complied with and the Sacred Heart image became intertwined with the history of France, particularly with the monarchy.6

J.J.Pasquier, La devotion au Sacre Coeur de Jesus
French, 1765
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France

Here Queen Marie Leczinska, wife of King Louis XV, pays homage to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Heart of Mary and to the Eucharist. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are held aloft by the figure of Faith. Hope holds the Eucharist, and Charity stands beside her.

Just as the Five Wounds of Christ had been an image that rallied the northern English against the Henrician reformation in 1536, the image of the Sacred Heart became an image that rallied those opposed to the French Revolution. It was worn as a badge and affixed to the banners of the rebels during the anti-Revolutionary Vendean uprisings of 1793 to 1796.7

Pierre-Narcisse Guerin, Henri de la Rochejacquelin
French, 1817
Cholet, Musée Municipal

Henri de la Rochejacquelin was a leader of the Rebellion in the Vendée and Cholet was one of the centers of the revolt which was ruthlessly crushed by the Republican government in what some have termed the first modern genocide.

In spite of the crushing of the rebellion in the Vendée, the Sacred Heart remained as a symbol for the royalist faction in France.

-Eugene Delacroix, The Virgin of the Sacred Heart
French, 1821
Ajaccio (Corsica), Cathedral

Jean-Leon Gerome, Bishop Belsunce Making a Vow to the Sacred Heart During the Plague in Marseilles
French, 1854
Paris, Church of Saint Severin

Hippolyte-Dominique Holfeld, The Sacred Heart Adored by All Parts of the World
French, c.1860
Dijon, Musée Magnin

In the latter years of the nineteenth century, following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, a great basilica was raised at the top of Montmartre hill in Paris, dedicated to reparations for the sins of France since the Revolution. Begun in 1870, it was completed in 1914, but its consecration was postponed until 1919 due to the First World War. It was named Sacre Coeur and is today a well-known, if little understood, feature of Paris.

Olivier Merson, H.M. Magne, R. Martin, The Sacred Heart of Jesus Adored by The Virgin Mary, St. Michael, the Pope, St. Joan of Arc and France (personified, in white)
French, 1923
Paris, Basilica of Sacre Coeur

And, during the period of the basilica’s construction, the image of the Sacred Heart had evolved into a more general symbol of French nationality, as several items suggest.

Button, The Sacred Heart As the Hope and Salvation of France
Franco-American, 1900
Besancon, Musée du Temps
The museum notes that these buttons were made in Newark, New Jersey!

One particularly touching collection of objects that was carried by one French soldier during the First World War attests to this. Among his possessions was a miniature flag of the French Republic, the tricolor, in which the white area bears the Sacred Heart.

First World War Personal Memorial Collection
French, 1914-1918
Dijon, Musée de la Vie Bourguinonne Perrin de Puycousin

This identification of the Sacred Heart image with France is not something that belongs solely to the past. I was somewhat astonished when in June of 2023 my You Tube recommendations turned up a video of the closing Mass of The Pilgrimage to Chartres. I was completely unaware of this event until being informed by You Tube. It has apparently been taking place for the last 40 years. It began as an event among traditional French Catholics but seems to have expanded to many more people in France and in other countries. What was, however, most astonishing to me were the number of flags and other symbols carried by the pilgrims that included the image of the Sacred Heart. Watch the first few minutes of the video below and you will see the Sacred Heart image displayed in the same fashion as the World War I soldier carried, in the center of the French tricolor. But you will also see it alone on a white background, in the center of the German flag, in a white ground on a flag quartered with gold fleur-de-lis on blue and red backgrounds and in countless other manifestations.

In 2024 we see the same thing again.

The Twentieth Century

In the twentieth century French and other artists continued to depict the image of the Sacred Heart in new and sometimes startling ways that are a far cry from the languid kitsch so familiar in religious goods stores today.

Odilon Redon, The Sacred Heart
French, 1910
Paris, Musée D'Orsay

Harry Clarke, The Sacred Heart
Irish, 1918
London, Victoria and Albert Museum

George Desvallieres, The Sacred Heart
French, 1920
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Musée Maurice Denis-Le Prieure

*Maurice Denis, The Sacred Heart
French, 1930
Paray-le-Monial, Musée du Hieron

Georges Roualt, The Sacred Heart
from the Passion Series
French, c. 1935-1936
Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou

Maurice Denis, The Sacred Heart of Jesus
French, 1939
Autun, Musée Rodin

The Twenty-First Century

*Frederic Hubert, Sacré Coeur
French, 2009
Paray-le-Monial, Musée du Hieron

The feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is not a fixed date. It depends on the date of Easter. It is celebrated on the Friday following the octave of Corpus Christi for those countries where Corpus Christi is celebrated on a Thursday or the Friday after Corpus Christi where Corpus Christi is celebrated on Sunday. In either way of computing the day is identical. This year, 2024, it falls on June 7th. As the feast usually falls in the month of June, June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

UPDATE:

In 2024 I replaced a number of images with better quality examples where these are available and added many new ones.

+ Indicates an updated image

* Indicates a new image

____________________________________________

Information on the promises can be found at http://www.catholictradition.org/Two-Hearts/devotion12.htm;
A very thorough look at the theology behind the devotion, all of which still applies, can be found at: Bainvel, Jean. "Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus," The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 21 Jun. 2017 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07163a.htm
Comment from member of the public at http://wdtprs.com/blog/2017/06/im-cool-about-a-certain-popular-devotion-wherein-fr-z-goes-all-rah/#comment-561091
John 19:34 "one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out." http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/19
Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c. 1400-c.1580, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1992, pp. 238-248. See also, Ethan H. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation, Cambridge (UK), Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 89-128.
Edmunds, Martha Mel. "Gabriel's Altar for the Palace Chapel at Versailles: Sacred Heart and Royal Court in Eighteenth-Century France", Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Dec., 2006), pp.550-577.
A pretty even handed summary is accessible at : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_the_Vend%C3%A9

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FebruaryFrom a Book of Hours German (Strasbourg), Early 16th CenturyLos Angeles, J. Paul Getty MuseumMS Ludwig IX 16, fol. 2r

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Circle of Antoine Le Moiturier, NativityFrench, c. 1450New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Birth of Jesus

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Related Feasts

The beginning of the new year brings with it two feasts that are reflections on the Christmas story rather than narrative depictions of the Gospels. These are the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, on January 1 and the feast of the Holy Name of Jesus on January 3.

For those of you who live in the New York area or who may be visiting, the glorious Christmas Tree with its 18th Century Italian Presepio figures (sometimes known as the Angel Tree) is again on view. This year it can be visited until January 6, 2026. As always, it is well worth the visit.

© M. Duffy, 2021, 2022 2023, 2024, 2025.

The O Antiphons

Stay Awake! The Admonition of Advent

Images of the Flood

Trying to Escape

After the Flood

"They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark"

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe

Developing the Iconography

Byzantine Tradition

Medieval Europe

The Renaissance

The Tradition Continues

Saint Francis of Assisi, The Stigmatization

Meditating on the Assumption

Glorious Saint Anne – The Iconography of Saint Anne

Saint Margaret of Antioch – Dragon Slayer

I Am Your Brother, Joseph

Images Before 1800

Images After 1800

The Sacred Heart of Jesus—An Iconographic Introduction

From the Sixth Century to the Middle Ages

The Man of Sorrows

February
From a Book of Hours
German (Strasbourg), Early 16th Century
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum
MS Ludwig IX 16, fol. 2r

Circle of Antoine Le Moiturier, Nativity
French, c. 1450
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art