Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/skon20

The Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother in Late Medieval Netherlandish Altarpieces

Ragnhild M. Bø

To cite this article: Ragnhild M. Bø (2020) The Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother in Late Medieval Netherlandish Altarpieces, Konsthistorisk tidskrift/Journal of Art History, 89:3, 165-190, DOI: 10.1080/00233609.2020.1770856 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00233609.2020.1770856

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

Published online: 28 May 2020.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 963

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=skon20 The Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother in Late Medieval Netherlandish Altarpieces

Ragnhild M. Bø

Introduction reforms occurred in the Netherlands, occasion- Visual representations of the Resurrected ing new communities of interpretation and Christ Appearing to His Mother appear in devotional innovations in both textual and Italian manuscripts around , linked to an visual culture, and targeting clerics and lay  episode in the Meditationes Vitae Christi.The people alike. Without dismissing the effects visual dissemination, however, never matched of patronage, commissions and the circulation its textual dissemination and it was still a rare of models, this article argues for more weight to motif when Rogier van der Weyden included be given to the agency of the often anonymous it in what has become its epitome, the right individual artist within workshops in the selec- panel of the Miraflores Triptych painted in the tion of religious scenes in larger altarpieces. early s. The textual sources and the pictor- Commencing with some introductory notes ial development of the Resurrected Christ on the encounter between mother and son in Appearing to His Mother were both thoroughly devotional texts and images, the first parts of outlined by James D. Breckenridge in ,but this article thus proceed by cross-referencing  the motif has since received little attention. In the inclusion and employment of the Resur- this article, I aim to revisit it by also including a rected Christ Appearing to His Mother in late group of objects not observed by Breckenridge, medieval altarpieces with the contemporary  namely Netherlandish carved altarpieces. flourishing of Vita Christi-literature and arti- Admired for their technical virtuosity, rich sans’ and artists’ possible increased partaking ornamentation and dense narratives, Nether- in religious reading. landish altarpieces spread all over Europe Whereas pictorial tradition, artistic imagin- between c.–, attracting a diverse ation and religious reading would integrate at  group of customers. As posited by Lynn the place of production, the potential for dis- F. Jacobs, however, Netherlandish altarpieces crepancies in perceptions of the altarpieces expressed “not only distinct tastes, but also par- would increase correspondingly with the dis-   ticular religious values.” From the fourteenth tance traveled. The Netherlandish altarpieces century onwards, a number of religious exported to Scandinavia are interesting cases

©  The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/./), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

ISSN 0023-3609 KONSTHISTORISK TIDSKRIFT/JOURNAL OF ART HISTORY 2020 Vol. 89, No. 3, 165– 190, https://doi.org/10.1080/00233609.2020.1770856 166 R. M. BØ in point: On the one hand, in this area the Res- urrected Christ Appearing to His Mother is only known from these imported altarpieces; on the other hand, however, the motif appears proportionally more frequent in the altarpieces imported to Scandinavia than else-  where. The last part of the article discusses to which extent altarpieces made for export were more prone to receive unsanctioned motifs such as the Resurrected Christ Appear- ing to his Mother; if the many examples found in Scandinavia are merely an accident; or if the appreciation of the scene in the north is to be traced not to Vita Christi-literature in general, but to the encounter between mother and son referenced in the visions of St Birgitta.

Text, image and religious reading Whereas the Resurrected Christ Appearing to Fig. 1. Unknown artist, The Resurrected Christ Appear- His Mother was disseminated in textual form ing to His Mother, Ci nous dist Artois, 1390–1400. Brus- in the Meditationes Vitae Christi from the sels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, MS II 7831, fol. 44. mid-thirteenth century, illuminations of the encounter seems to have emerged only triptych displays the Holy Family, the Lamen- around , either in copies of the Medita- tation and the Resurrected Christ Appearing  tiones itself or in derivative devotional texts. to his Mother, noted by Alfred Acres to be In the Netherlands, the earliest depiction is an “three non-biblical tableaus of distilled devo-  illuminated scene in the devotional treatise Ci tional content.” Visualizing scenes corre-  nous dist from c. (Fig. ). Its more sponding to Gospel accounts only in the famous – and probably the more copied – imitational sculpture, the altarpiece is also depiction, however, is the one incorporated in uncommon in being divided into three Rogier van der Weyden’s Miraflores Triptych equally sized compartments instead of the tra- (Fig. ), painted in the early s. Although ditional triptych form. Furthermore, the altar- documentary evidence is inconclusive when it piece differs from other altarpieces painted by comes to the commission of the altarpiece, it Rogier because the texts on the banderoles is known that Juan II of Castile gave a triptych held by angels at the crest of each arch do not by Master Rogier to the Carthusian monastery quote Biblical passages verbatim. Rather, they at Miraflores (Burgos) in ; if the king was paraphrase three episodes from Scripture refer- indeed the commissioner, he was probably ring to a crown and elaborate these into Marian  aided by his Brussels envoy Juan de Murillo. praise, communicating that the first crown is Framed by imitational sculpture with epi- awarded for her purity, the second for her  sodes from the Life of the Virgin, Rogier’s faith and the third for her perseverance. RESURRECTED CHRIST APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER IN LATE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDISH ALTARPIECES 167

mother. When analyzing the Miraflores Trip- tych, Erwin Panofsky took this message in earnest and found the motif to be based “in some way or other, on Pseudo-Bonaventure’s  Meditationes.” The encounter between the Resurrected Christ and His mother unfolds as:

Then, while she was praying this way and gently weeping, look there, the Lord Jesus suddenly did come: dressed in whitest white garments, serene countenance, beauti- ful glorious and rejoicing. At her side, he addressed her: “Greeting, holy parent.” She, turning at once asked, “Is it you, Jesus, my son?” Then she knelt to adore him. And he knelt in similar fashion, saying, “My dearest mother, I am he (John, , ); I have risen,  and here I am with you.”

Following up on Panofsky’s research, however, James D. Breckenridge, demonstrated that narratives placing the Virgin “on stage,” often as present at the grave, emerged early on, both among Coptic and Byzantine writers and in the Latin West. According to Fig. 2. Rogier van der Weyden, The Resurrected Christ Breckenridge, all authors seemingly shared Appearing to His Mother, Miraflores Triptych (detail), Brussels, 1442–45, oil on panel. Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, the belief that “a meeting at which Christ Inv. No. 534A. announced his Resurrection to His mother was no less than a logical necessity in the com-  Nicola Sinclair has convincingly argued the pletion of his ministry.” The urge to have the three-themed division and the emphasis on Virgin written into narratives on Christ’s post- the Virgin makes the triptych an important mortal life infused texts already in the twelfth precursor to the rosary for which the Carthu- century probably due to a number of cultural  sians at Miraflores were an ideal audience. transfers and codifications and amplifications In the depiction of the Resurrected Christ of a body of legends present in the written tra- Appearing to His Mother, Christ steps into dition of the Church as well as in wider oral  the Virgin’s dwelling as she looks at him traditions. with her hands raised in surprise. The actual The Meditationes may have been the first Resurrection takes place in the landscape text where the Resurrected Christ Appearing visible through the open porch in the back- to His Mother is defined as an actual event, ground. Next to the Resurrection, the three yet Jacobus Voragine also delineated the possi- Maries are seen approaching the tomb, bility of such an encounter in his Legenda  emphasizing the message of the motif in the Aurea in the s. Similar encounters take front: that Christ appeared first to His place in texts adapted from the Meditationes 168 R. M. BØ in the fourteenth century: in Cistercian circles s) and De Imitatione Christi, written by  by Guillaume de Degueville’s Pelerinage de – or ascribed to – Thomas (c.). Existing Jesu and – important for my subsequent dis- in numerous manuscripts and printed edi- cussion of artists participating in religious tions, De Imitatione Christi enjoyed great reading – in Dominican and Carthusian popularity and profoundly influenced reli-  circles by Ludolph of Saxony’s Vita Christi. gious practices in late-medieval societies all The encounter between the resurrected over Western Europe. Thomas also wrote Christ and the Virgin was also included in other spiritual treatises and sermons, such as  texts provided by visionary women, such as Orationes et meditationes de vita Christi.  St Birgitta of Sweden (d.). In St Birgit- In this latter text, Thomas identifies the ta’s recalling of the encounter, the Virgin post-resurrection events in ways similar to herself puts the scene into words: the original Italian text allowing for encoun- ters between Christ and the Magdalene, the After my son’s death, I the Mother of God, Virgin, St Peter, the disciples on their way to was saddened with a sorrow beyond under- Emmaus and St Thomas, but he expands sig- standing, but palpable to my touch, he appeared to me before appearing to anyone nificantly on each appearance. Although the else, and he comforted me and reminded Virgin is second to the Magdalene in the me that he would be seen ascending into order of appearances in Thomas’ text, the heaven. Although this is not in Scripture fi because of my humility, it is nonetheless text itself assures the reader she was the rst: the truth of the matter that when my son arose he appeared to me first before anyone  This then is to be piously believed by all the else. faithful, that before any one [sic] else Thou didst first of all visit Thy most holy Although confirming the need among writers Mother, who was sorrowing deeply at Thy Passion; and by Thy presence didst dispel from earlier centuries to have the Virgin all her grief and sorrow, and didst fill her  written into the earliest moments of the Resur- heart with joy. rection, St Birgitta did not elaborate on the conversation between mother and son, nor Unlike copies of the Meditationes Vitae did she voice anything about an imaginative Christi, as well as copies of various translations  onlooker or a reader’s emotional response. of the text and copies of the Legenda Aurea, One author who is absent from Panofsky the few extracts from Thomas à Kempis’ Ora- and Breckenridge’s discussions of the motif tiones included in late fifteenth books of hours is Thomas à Kempis (d.), an Augustinian and devotional miscellanies seem not to have actively involved in the religious reform move- been accompanied by illuminations apart for  ment known as the devotio moderna, founded decorated initials. When the Orationes was  in Deventer by Geert Groote in . Calling printed in Utrecht in  it was also for apostolic renewal through the rediscovery without illustrations. The Utrecht printing, of pious practices such as humility, obedience however, is verbatim with Thomas’ autograph and simplicity of life for community members, text and includes punctuation marks (flexa)to the movement’s ideas would also reach larger indicate the rhythm and intonation required audiences through writings, such as Groote’s when reading aloud. Clearly designed for De quattuor generibus meditabilium (late public reading, the text may indeed have RESURRECTED CHRIST APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER IN LATE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDISH ALTARPIECES 169 been known to far more persons than the Rarely mentioning book titles,boedels small number of manuscripts and editions of (inventories of movable estates) from  printed books indicate. Antwerp c.– does not match the detailed Analyzing Rogier’s Miraflores Triptych, information in the post mortem inventories Panofsky found the Resurrected Christ from the north of France. They do disclose, Appearing to His Mother to be “characteristic however, that the amount of books in house- of Roger’s psychology,” but also acknowledged holds of burghers differed both in numbers the possibility “that the rare subject was code- and content and that some of these books  termined by the wishes of the patron (…).” were intended for religious or devotional pur-  More poignantly yet less discussed is Panofs- poses. If the dissemination of religious and ky’s assumption that “he [Rogier] knew of devotional texts is somewhat obscured, the  course the Meditationes.” Admittedly, asses- visual material culture listed in these boedels sing artisans’ and artists’ actual involvement in offer a more solid evidence for household pos- religious reading is a challenging task and sessions of religious items: There are a great there is little documentary evidence to prove many crucifixes and paintings of the Virgin, if artists read books themselves or if they as well as items more specifically designed for would acquire knowledge of devotional texts domestic devotion, such as a rosary painted merely as attendants. Even for Antwerp, on cloth and on display in a frame, a painting where preserved documentation allow for pro- of the Fourteenth Holy Helpers, a Johan- sopographical analyses of artists’ whereabouts nesschüssel, and what is described as a Transfig-  and careers, intellectual interests and religious uration with two doors (a triptych?).  views often remain obscured. Various cir- Although not immediately recognizable from cumstantial evidence, however, indicate arti- any of the items listed in these sixteenth- sans read vernacular religious literature and century boedels, a household triptych with the were involved in the circulation, dissemina- Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother tion, appropriation and even creation of reli- painted on the inside of the right wing from gious texts as religious books were common c. (Fig. ) and a contemporary household features in the houses and workshops of late  medieval artisans. Examples of book- owning artisans are the goldsmith Jean Turquam from Tournai, who according to his post mortem inventory from  pos- sessed among other books a Life of Christ in French and a French translation of Thomas à Kempis’s Imitatio Christi; the merchant Jean Piece from Amiens was recorded in  as owning a French translation of the Legenda Aurea; and Pierre de Coyn from the same town, was known in the previous year to possess a copy of Ludolph of Saxony’s  Fig. 3. House altar, Brussels (?), 1490–1510, poly- Vita Christi. It is very likely artists would chrome wood. Brussels, Musées Royaux d’Art et d’His- possess similar literature. toire, Inv. No. V.354. 170 R. M. BØ retable with the scene included as one of four scenes surrounding the Crucifixion indicate two visual contexts in which the motif could  be experienced outside the church. As the Miraflores Triptych was shipped to Castile soon after its creation, the novel icono- graphy may not have had much immediate impact on the iconography of Netherlandish altarpieces. A drawing executed with brown pen on preparatory drawings of black chalk from Rogier’s workshop, however, demon- strates that the motif was subject to exper- iments. Dated to –, it has a similar exposition of mother and son as the scene in the Miraflores Triptych, yet the architectural background is diminished and there is an angel on the grave in the background instead  of the risen Christ (Fig. ). Its rather coarse nature suggests it was intended as a model for painters to refine in oil, embodying, in the words of Stefan Hautekeete, “a pictorial Fig. 4. Rogier van der Weyden (workshop?), The Resur- rected Christ Appearing to His Mother, 1430–50, brown solution for the appearance that was entirely pen on preparatory drawings of black chalk. Paris, new and very quickly became the guideline École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Inv. M 665.  others would follow.” Others did indeed follow, but apparently only around – influenced their perception and appreciation  when depictions similar to Rogier’s employ- of art. In , Leeu printed the first edition ment of the motif appeared in altarpieces of Tboeck vanden leven Jhesu Christi,adialogue painted by the Master of the Ehningen in Dutch between Man and Scripture adapted Retable and by an anonymous follower of from Ludolph of Saxony’s Vita Christi.Thisis Rogier, as well as in the Paganotti Triptych the first Netherlandish incunabula to contain  by the Master of the Ursula Legend. an image of the Resurrected Christ Appearing At the same time as the motif (re)emerged in to His Mother, and it does so in the form of a  these painted altarpieces, it found its way into half-page wood cut (Fig. ). Just like most printed books, an imperative medium for the artisans and artists in Antwerp, Leeu carried dissemination for both texts and images at the out his commercial endeavors at the Pand end of the fifteenth century. Gerhard Leeu’s and enjoyed a membership of the guild of St work on the religious vernacular text the Luke, perchance interacting with the sculptural Devote ghetiden in  and in /,for artists employing the motif in contemporary  example, is believed not only to have acceler- altarpieces. ated iconographic developments in a variety Having had a rather longstanding pictorial of media, but also to have informed the tradition in copies of the Meditationes and minds of readers and viewers and to have derivative devotional texts, the inclusion of RESURRECTED CHRIST APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER IN LATE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDISH ALTARPIECES 171

Fig. 5. Gerard Leeu, The Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother, colored woodcut from Tboeck vanden leven Jhesu Christi, Antwerp 1487. Liège, University Fig. 6. Artist painting in the Bedford style, The Resur- Library, XV.C164. rected Christ Appearing to His Mother, Book of Hours, Matins. Poitiers(?), 1450–75. Baltimore, Walters Art the Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Gallery, MS W 289, fol. 34. Mother in an illuminated book of hours made in Poitiers(?) between – (Fig. ) narratives in carved altarpieces is the more points to a new artistic engagement with the common, and it is to these I now turn. motif. Replacing the commonly found Annun- ciation at the opening of Matins, it lacks the The Resurrected Christ Appearing to narrative context offered in the Vita Christi- His Mother as a motif in literature. It is also applied as a moment in Netherlandish altarpieces the Life of the Virgin rather than as a  moment in Christ’s Passion. From its In Netherlandish altarpieces, the Resurrected inclusion in preserved religious material Christ Appearing to His Mother materialized culture from the late fifteenth and early six- both in sculpture and painting and it persisted teenth centuries, it seems the motif eventually through all stages of their formal developments, parted ways into two different visual situ- occurring in altarpieces with square-endings,  ations: It could be included as a scene from ogees and rounded tops alike. The small the Life of the Virgin and in particular as sculpted version in Strängnäs I is probably the one of the Seven Joys of the Virgin; or it earliest occurrence (Fig. (a,b)). The altarpiece could be included as one of the final scenes is attributed to a collaborator or follower of  of the Passion. The inclusion in Passion JanIorJanIIBormaninBrusselsand 172 R. M. BØ

Fig. 7. Collaborator or follower of Jan I or Jan II Borman (Jan III Borman?), Strängnäs I altarpiece, Brussels, c.1480– 90, gilded and polychrome oak. Strängnäs cathedral. commissioned by or on behalf of Cordt Rogge, Mother, the Noli me tangere, Christ Appear-  bishop in Strängnäs, in the s. The ing to St Peter and the Supper in Emmaus –  encounter between mother and son is included all surround the larger Resurrection. In together with minor sculptures of the Resurrec- Häverö, the motif is included together with tion and the Supper in Emmaus in the tracery the women at the tomb also in the margins above Christ Reveals himself to the Disciples. of the Resurrection, whereas as the Incredulity As it is, the three smaller scenes likely allude of Thomas is included in painting on the small to the illusionary sculpted arches found in wing above. In Elmpt, the motif is included Rogier’s Miraflores Triptych. The Rogerian above the Lamentation, together with a small influence on the artists carving the Strängnäs I sculpted scene of the Last Rites, whereas the is also present in stylistic choices, for example Noli me tangere is painted on the outside of in the bending pose of one of the women wit- the small shutters; in the altarpieces from Ton- nessing the Crucifixion which is similar to the geren, Västerfärnebo and Jonsberg, the Resur-  Magdalene in Rogier’s Descent from the Cross. rected Christ Appearing to his Mother is Altarpieces with an exposition of the motif included together with the Noli me tangere similar to Strangnäs I include Strängnäs II, in the margins of the Resurrection in the two  the altarpieces made for the Beguine convent former and the Lamentation in the latter. at Tongeren and for the parish church in When included in the form of a painted Münstermaifeld, as well as the ones if not scene, the Resurrected Christ Appearing to made for, now in or known to have been in His Mother is most commonly situated on the parish churches of Elmpt, Häverö, Jons- the inside of the small movable upper wing to  berg and Västerfärnebo. In Strängnäs II, an the viewer’s right. Such is the position in the altarpiece more loosely associated with Cordt Passion altarpieces in Botkyrka, By, Château Rogge, four post-resurrection appearances – de Pagny, Frustuna, d’Herbais-sous-Piétrain, the Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Heimbach, Hökhovud, Münstermaifeld, RESURRECTED CHRIST APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER IN LATE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDISH ALTARPIECES 173

Nordingrå, Opitter, Pont-à-Mousson, her side, covered in a red cloak, holding a Schwerte, Västerlövsta, Vårdnäs, Wattignies cross with a banner in his left hand, blessing and Zoutleeuw. In the altarpieces in Waase, the Virgin with his right. In the background, the scene is included in the upper wing to the there is a bed covered with green draperies  viewer’sleft. Except for the Leuven prove- and a window. These features are present in nance of the altarpiece in Zoutleeuw and the all the other altarpieces mentioned above, at Brussels provenance of By and Nordingrå, all times with smaller variations such as the red are Antwerp products and all are Passion altar- draperies and omission of the prie-dieu in pieces, mostly dated to the earlier decades of the Pont-à-Mousson (Fig. ). In Botkyrka and sixteenth century. Hökhuvud, Christ appears descending rather Although the Resurrected Christ Appearing than standing next to the Virgin whereas the to His Mother is painted on a smaller surface, Brusssels altarpieces Nordingrå (Fig. ) and entrusted with fewer details and relegated to a By are more indebted to the pictorial tradition marginal part of the altarpiece, the motif is of Rogier as Christ shows his stigmata instead  otherwise employed as by Rogier: as a visual of holding the cross with a banner. rendering of the encounter between mother The only preserved altarpiece which has the and son only in an interior setting. In the altar- Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother piece from d’Herbais-sous-Piétrain (Fig. ), included both as a minor sculpture and a for example, a carved prie-dieu is placed at painted wing is the Passion retable in Mün- the left front. The Virgin kneels behind it, stermaifeld, securely dated to  (Fig. (a, dressed in a blue robe and Christ appears by b)). As it is, this could be the altarpiece in

Fig. 8. The Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother, altarpiece from d’Herbais-sous-Piétrain, Antwerp, ca. 1530, gilded and polychrome oak. Brussels, Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Inv. No. 4009. 174 R. M. BØ

Fig. 9. The Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother, altarpiece (detail), Antwerp, ca.1520, gilded and polychrome oak. Botkyrka parish church. which the motif was transferred from sculp- these two sets of wings, however, does not ture to painting, re-installing it to the format mean the artist responsible would not be employed by Rogier and other Netherlandish capable of including a more experimental painters. The sculptures of the Münstermai- motif. feld are attributed to Jan Genoots, but the As very few documents report the commis-  identity of the painter remains unknown. sions of Netherlandish carved altarpieces, I Genoots is also associated with the carving in allow a contract relating to the Seven Sorrows  Botkyrka and Västerlövsta. For these two Altarpiece commissioned for the Cistercian altarpieces, however, the paintings have been nunnery at ‘s Hertogendal in  to address attributed to the Master of the Groote Adora- the content of what Jacobs considered to be tion who may also have been responsible for “the least important painted sections of an   the paintings in Frustuna and Hökhuvud. altarpiece.” In the ‘s Hertogendal contract, It seems, however, this master was not respon- the painter Jan van Molenbeke is asked to add sible for the small wings, at least not the small donor portraits “to each of the doors of the wings in Botkyrka and Västerlövsta, said to four big doors of the panel” as well as “in the  have been painted by “weaker hands.” The two small wings above at the top [there] shall possible inferior in quality of the paintings in be our Lord sitting in one [wing] and in the RESURRECTED CHRIST APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER IN LATE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDISH ALTARPIECES 175

motifs on the smaller wings, thus allowing one of his fellow workers to include the Resur- rected Christ Appearing to his Mother to be included in painting in Münstermaifeld, Bot- kyrka and Västerlövsta.

Employment, context, vision and devotion In pictorial design, the staging of Christ and the Virgin in the Resurrected Christ Appear- ing to His Mother is very similar to the Annunciation. Also in meaning, the two motifs are closely related: the Virgin is being announced to and it is the presence of the living Christ (the Word Incarnate) that is announced. In none of the preserved altar- pieces, however, does the Annunciation comp- lement the Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother in the same way as does the juxta- position of the Word Incarnate and the Resur- rected Flesh in the Advent and Triumph of Christ altarpiece painted by Hans Memling  in . Yet, in the altarpieces from Fig. 10. The Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Château de Pagny and d’Herbais sous Piétrain, Mother, altarpiece (detail), Brussels, 1510–15, gilded and polychrome oak. Nordingrå parish church. the Annunciation and the Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother are placed diagon- ally, the Annunciation in the lower left and  other Our Lady in manner of a coronation.” the encounter in the upper right. In these Merely requesting a theme and not a detailed two altarpieces, the employment of the two iconographical representation, it seems the ico- motifs thus elusively allows the viewer to nography of the wings was of lesser importance ponder the Life of Christ from its very begin- to the commissioners; these wings may thus ning to its very end while also encircling the  have been a part of the altarpiece where entire altarpiece. artists could paint a motif of their own liking, With the exception of Vårdnäs, the Resur- or experiment and invent. The involvement rected Christ Appearing to His Mother only of Jan Genoots in three altarpieces containing comes to the attention of the viewers when the motif may prove instructive, too, even if the altarpiece is open. Addressing this mise- the records concerning him were written due en-scene with the narration of the encounter  to violations of guild regulations. If not meti- in Thomas’s Orationes in the form of a culously concerned with regulations, he may visual exegesis may allow for a better under- also have been inclined to accept untried standing of its inclusion in carved altarpieces. 176 R. M. BØ

Said to have taken place when the Virgin and was composed for Margaret of York, duchess Christ were alone together, Thomas’s text of Burgundy (d.) by her almoner allows the reader to utter: “Oh, that I had Nicolas Finet sometimes around , and been there, and had heard Thy sweet words the miniature was painted by a follower of  (…), could I, for my comfort in my earthly pil- Dreux Jean (Fig. ). Christ stands on the grimage, so full of danger as it is, have remem- left side, holding the cross and the banner. bered even one or two words of that sacred He is dressed in a red cloak, wrapped around  converse!” It is also embedded in Thomas’ his body in a way that exposes the side text that the encounter was too holy for any wound. The duchess is seated as if in prayer, humans to assist: “Perchance too that confer- but reaching out for Christ. A white dog lies ence was so exalted and so heavenly, (…), on the floor. Whereas the inclusion of small that neither were the Apostles allowed at that (white) dogs is a common feature in portraits time to enter, nor could they have taken in of (female) book owners from the late four- the wondrous mysteries (…),”stressing, as it teenth century onwards, no such domestic  were, “no mortal men were present.” interruptions is found in the subsequent Sense-perception and emotional experience depictions of the Resurrected Christ Appear- of the holy were of much importance for late ing to His Mother in the preserved altarpieces. medieval religious selves also from outside Adapting the frontispiece to the duchess’ the ordained or cloistered spheres and prac- visual situation when reading the treatise, the  ticed in rather sophisticated terms. The follower of Dreux Jean thus allowed Margaret wish to be absorbed into the scene has its of York the potential of visualizing Christ’s perhaps most profound expression not in an presence as did the Virgin and as prescribed  altarpiece, but in the frontispiece of Le dyalo- in the text. gue de la duchesse de Bourgogne à Jesus The possibility to allow a lay person to Christ. A treatise on contemplation, the text witness the resurrected Christ in lieu of the

Fig. 11. Jan Genoots (sculpture, attributed) and unknown painter, The Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother, altarpiece (details), Antwerp, 1518, gilded and polychrome oak. Münstermaifeld parish church. RESURRECTED CHRIST APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER IN LATE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDISH ALTARPIECES 177

Fig. 12. Follower of Dreux Jean, The Resurrected Christ and Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, Le dyalogue de la duchesse de Bourgogne à Jesus Christ. Brussels(?), ca.1468. London, British Library, MS Add. 7970, fol.1v.

Virgin in the same way as could Margaret prie-dieu while presented by his patron saint seems, however, not to have been repeated. St Paul on the left shutter, looking directly at Moreover, the Resurrected Christ appearing the encounter between mother and son on  to His Mother is very rarely included in the the right. One could argue, in accordance many painted altarpieces with devotional por- with the textual narrative of Thomas, that if traits. The devout person more close to the “no mortal were present,” that neither Margaret encounter in the sense that his portrait is nor Paolo nor any of their peers would actually painted next to the Resurrected Christ Appear- achieve a vision of the encounter as did St Bir- ing to His Mother, is Paolo Paganotti. In the gitta and Margery Kempe. altarpiece painted by the Master of the Ursula Nonetheless, Thomas’s text also posits Legend, Paganotti is kneeling in front of a “(…), full of affection I keep on knocking at 178 R. M. BØ the door of Thy loving Mother (…).” This The Resurrected Christ Appearing to knocking, I believe, is to be understood as an His Mother as a motif in Scandinavia “ocular knocking,” a glance pleading to take We are left mostly with circumstantial evi- part in the encounter when a priest or some dence for the commissions of the altarpieces other ecclesiasts open the wing and reveal transported to Scandinavia. In the few cases the scene. Such knocking is also featured in where it is possible to establish a relation earlier Franciscan treatises of prayer such as between an artist or a workshop and a com- the Septem gradus orationis by David of Augs- missioner, such as the Strängnäs I, there is burg (d.) in which the devout was encour- no information about who would decide the aged not to pray but to knock, as “through  iconography. Because one painter may knocking we experience the sweetness [of  have been responsible for at least four versions God].” Moreover, this employment also (Botkyrka, Frustuna, Västerlövsta and Hökhu- stresses an aspect of the late medieval vud), the motif may have been copied routi- viewing designed as “looking but not quite nely by the master or by an associate or seeing,” a strategy found in late medieval altar- apprentice in his workshop based on model pieces as well as in contemporary tomb monu-  patterns, and thus imported unintentionally. ments of the nobility. As Kim Woods has noted, however, it was It follows from such propositions that the possible for clients at the Antwerp Pand to devotional culture of the time, manifest in view “display models probably at far closer book possessions and images in private house- range than they would ever be allowed to holds, meant artisans and artists in the Nether- venture once the altarpiece was installed in a lands shared what Michael Clanchy called a   church (…).” The motif may thus have “literate mentality.” They may even have been specifically requested also for the altar- formed textual communities, in as far as this pieces ending up in Swedish parish churches, coining of terms may be taken to designate at times finding a rather strong resonance people of the same profession forming a com- among parishioners, in particular in Vårdnäs munity similar to people belonging to a monas-  where the encounter is painted on the outer tic order. It thus seems beneficial to include side of the wings. This placement meant the what artisans and artists read and potentially motif would be on display throughout most discussed to more fully understand what they of the liturgical year. themselves could bring to the creation of reli- If widespread in the Netherlands, the Med- gious works of art. More in particular, cross- itationes Vitae Christi has left fewer traces in referencing the employment of the Resurrected Scandinavia, and Thomas’s Orationes would Christ Appearing to His Mother in carved primarily have been known among those altarpieces with its narrative counterparts in who had access to the University in Copenha- devotional literature suggest the motif was gen (established in ) and the libraries well understood in Netherlandish workshops from the (then) Danish Franciscan convents beyond instructions from patrons and commis-  in Flensburg and Cismar. St Birgitta’s Reve- sioners – and, as it were, possibly understood in lationes, on the other hand, were widely disse- a way that favored the common parishioner minated in manuscripts as well as in print, and outside the altarpiece proper, more than the text was printed in Sweden as early as named commissioner/devotee within it. RESURRECTED CHRIST APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER IN LATE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDISH ALTARPIECES 179

 . In addition to the textual circulation, wings very similar to the exposé of the Resur- the nuns at Vadstena would recite from the rected Christ Appearing to his Mother, Christ text daily, interacting with pilgrims and the displays the stigmata and appears on the right lay congregation from a tribune on the north- to St Birgitta who, book in her hand, hears the ern wall of the abbey church. They were not words: “(…) it is now time to fulfilmy visible to the ones circulating in the nave, promise: you shall be clothed and consecrated  but their singing and reading would be heard as a nun before my altar.” The encounter is (in the same way as would the Orationes else- included in an altarpiece with scenes from where, as indeed indicated by the flexa). the Life of the Virgin encircling the Virgin of  Although there were more Birgettine houses the Rosary in the corpus. The altarpiece in the Netherlands and Rhineland, they also thus indicates devotional practices and settled in Maribo () and Mariager prayers related both to the Virgin of the () in Denmark as well as in the former Rosary and to St Birgitta as well as yet not Benedictine convent of Munkeliv ()in fully explored affinities to Vadstena. Norway. Apart from the textual and auditory disse- The manuscripts produced by the Birgettine minations of the Revelationes – and the cult nuns themselves, however, do not demon- of St Birgitta more in general – the Legenda strate much iconographical invention in Aurea, Ludolph’s Vita Christi and derivations regard to narrative scenes as they mostly of the other devotional texts mentioned above contain non-narrative devotional imagery seem to have had a more constrained circula- such as portraits of individual saints, hearts tion in Scandinavia than on the continent, and and anagrams. This holds true both for the probably even less in the more remote books of hours produced in Vadstena and parishes. This could indicate that the parishi- for the so-called Psalter-Breviaries produced oners attending celebrations in parish  by Birgettine houses in the Netherlands. churches with Netherlandish altarpieces con- The omission of narrative pictorial contents taining the motif, in as far as they were given in these manuscripts, however, does not access to the altarpiece at all, may not ever impede the meeting between the resurrected have been able to truly decipher the scene. Christ and his mother witnessed by Birgitta As my discussion above suggested, the motif in her Revelationes as being one of the contri- may haven initially been included and posi- buting sources for the employment of the tioned in an upper smaller wing as it resonated motif in Netherlandish altarpieces in the first with narratives of the encounter between place as artists may have been among those lis- mother and son in devotional literature. tening to the recitations of the texts. However, the motif’s apocryphal source and In any event, the motif was not included in thus inherent unsanctioned nature may also the Brussels altarpiece commissioned by the have led artists at the place of production Vadstena community upon the consecration (Antwerp in particular) to apply it more of the altar of the Virgin of the Rosary in often in altarpieces destined for export. After  . The Antwerp altarpiece in Årsunda all, the altarpieces in question were all pro- (Fig. ), however, contains a very singular duced in a time when the religious climate in event, namely Christ appearing to St Birgitta. the Netherlands was not only diverse and Painted on the exterior of the upper smaller pragmatic, but also conflictual. The many 180 R. M. BØ

Fig. 13. The Resurrected Christ Appearing to St Birgitta, altarpiece (detail), Antwerp, 1500–20, gilded and poly- chrome oak. Årsunda parish church. debates concerning images as doctrines dis- representation is replaced by a representation  guised in aesthetic allure did not go unnoticed in bas-relief and entirely gilded (Fig. ). in the production of religious material Informed by Italianate aesthetics and the  culture. many debates on religious artifacts caused by Regardless if the motif was being included in the Reformation, this altarpiece is one of a large scale altarpieces as a result of artists parti- small group of six preserved altarpieces cipating and engaging in religious reading or if described as “late Gothic retables disguised in  it was included because the altarpiece was des- a Renaissance mantle.” Although materials tined to a church outside the Netherlands, the with more overt all’antica connotations such relation between the Resurrected Christ as alabaster and marble would become the pre- Appearing to His Mother and Netherlandish ferred material for altarpieces in the next centu- altarpieces seems to culminate in an altarpiece ries – and painted altarpieces would outnumber from a significantly later date, namely the one the sculpted ones – the material appearance of now in Roskilde cathedral (c.). In this the Roskilde altarpiece may be said to be in altarpiece, the motif is included on the small accordance with its own time: the material upper wing to the left and the painted matter (bas-relief, gilded surface) and motif RESURRECTED CHRIST APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER IN LATE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDISH ALTARPIECES 181

Fig. 14. The Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother, altarpiece (detail), Antwerp, ca. 1560, gilded and poly- chrome oak. Roskilde cathedral.

(Passion iconography) work in tandem to “intrinsic values,” that is the sum of the politi- promote a unity, possibly manifesting a cal (urban), ideological (guild, mastership, co- Lutheran view on flesh and spirit as not separ- operative) and religious (devotional, imita-   ate, but curved in upon themselves. tional) climate in which they were produced. In order to fulfil these aspects of consumers’ preferences, not at least because of the Concluding remarks period’s emphasis on an imitational and inten- Appearing towards the end of the fourteenth sified devotion, the makers of the altarpieces at century in the C’est nous dist, the Resurrected times moved beyond the formulaic and con- Christ Appearing to His Mother is found in ventional, introducing new religious concepts. artifacts as different as books of hours, porta- One such new concept was the one explaining ble altars and triptychs from the subsequent that after his Resurrection the first person century. All Netherlandish altarpieces Christ went to see was the Virgin Mary. responded to contemporary local tastes for Never among the most common motifs, it what Lynn F. Jacobs identified as dense narra- did enjoy a certain popularity in altarpieces tives, multiple small scenes and polychromy. made between c.–, and in particular The ones with guild hallmarks also possessed in altarpieces exported to Scandinavia. 182 R. M. BØ

Outlined in the Mediationes vita Christi,in been the carved altarpieces came to an  the Legenda Aurea, in Ludolph of Saxony’s almost complete standstill around . As Vita Christi, in St Birgitta’s Revelationes and carved altarpieces were the material object in in the writings of Thomas à Kempis, the Res- which the Resurrected Christ Appearing to urrected Christ Appearing to His Mother as a His Mother had thrived the most, the motif pictorial motif may, not at least in relation to also declined and it seems not to have been the latter source have been thought of as included in any of the paintings listed in the appropriate for a peripheral, movable part of city’s boedels from –. Rather, in the altarpieces, and perhaps especially in altar- wake of the iconoclasm that swept through pieces produced by artists participating or the city in , the most popular motifs otherwise engaged in religious reading. The among the religious scenes in private homes placement of the motif on the inside of a were the Last Supper and the Deposition, small wing allowed for quite a few of the and if of a singular saint, St Hieronymus and  ‘secrecies’ of the encounter emphasized in St Mary Magdalene. In fact, the motif devotional literature to come to the fore: the seems to have but little continuations in the Virgin and Christ are alone together; the reformed regions of Holland, England, non-Biblical scene is almost exclusively Germany and Scandinavia, with the inclusion included in the altarpiece’s ‘periphery’ and in the Roskilde altarpiece as a lone excep-  the motif is hidden from sight most of the tion. It may, however, be repeatedly liturgical year. observed in the oeuvre of Spanish and Italian It cannot be excluded that more nobles had Baroque painters. It is also found in paintings themselves replacing the Virgin, allowing and on liturgical objects and vestments pro- them to communicate with the resurrected duced in the southern part of the Netherlands, Christ in the same way as did Margaret of such as in a chasuble embroidered in Brussels York in the manuscript made for her around by Bartholomeus van de Kerckhoven in    or Paolo Paganotti in the triptych he (Fig. ). commissioned around . Lay presences in No churches in Scandinavia witnessed ico- religious scenes were a commonplace in late noclastic riots similar to the ones in England medieval visual culture and would certainly and various parts of the Netherlands following propel the employment of motifs fit for such the Reformation (installed in Denmark- personalization. Even if St Birgitta had been Norway in / and in Sweden in ), canonized well before the making of the thus most (medieval) altarpieces would con-  Årsunda altarpiece, the adaptation of the tinue to be on display. Yet unlike other motif into Christ Appearing to St Birgitta is post-resurrection narratives such as the Noli – at least in visual terms – a similar me tangere and the Incredulity of Thomas, personalization. the Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Due to changes in market dynamics as well Mother never made it into the locally produced as external factors like flood and famine, the religious art in the area. Whereas the motif was commercial endeavors at the Antwerp Pand considered a scene from the Life of Christ when began to cease at the end of the s and employed in the Netherlandish altarpieces at one of many consequences was that the pro- the time of production, it seems that in duction of the successful object that had Lutheran Scandinavia, its former Christological RESURRECTED CHRIST APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER IN LATE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDISH ALTARPIECES 183

Fig. 15. Bartholomeus van de Kerckhoven, embroidered chasuble (detail), Brussels, 1562. Sint-Kwintens-Lennik, Sint-Kwintens. connotation was eclipsed by the fact that the Illuminare at KU Leuven during a stay funded encounter between the resurrected Christ and and facilitated by the Research Infrastructure on Religious Studies (ReIReS). his mother is a non-Biblical event.

Endnotes Acknowledgements . James D. Breckenridge, “‘Et Prima Vidit’: The Iconography of the Appearance of Christ to His Mother”, I would thank Ann Adams and Susie Green (Cour- The Art Bulletin, ,No, , pp. –. tauld Institute of Art) and Bret Rothstein (Indiana . ‘Netherlandish altarpieces’ designate altarpieces made in University Bloomington) for commenting on the geographical area of Brabant, that is in workshops in earlier drafts of this article. Also, I wish to thank Brussels, Antwerp, Mechelen or Leuven. French literature the two anonymous reviewers for their encouraging on the topic seems to prefer ‘Brabantine.’ comments. Moreover, I am very grateful for the . Comprehensive studies of Netherlandish altarpieces hospitality and generosity entrusted me by various include Antwerpse retabels, de-de eeuw, ed. Hans members of the research clusters Lectio and M. J. Nieuwdorp, vol. , Antwerp, ; Lynn F. Jacobs, 184 R. M. BØ

Early Netherlandish Carved Altarpieces, –. . There are about  Netherlandish carved altarpieces in the Medieval Tastes and Mass Marketing, Cambridge, ; Nordic region today,  of these are in Sweden. See Retables brabançons des XVe et XVIe siècles, ed. Sophie Gunnar Lindqvist, Senmedeltida altarskåp från Bryssel och Guillot de Suduiraut, Paris, ; Miroirs du sacré. Les Antwerpen i Sverige. Unpublished doctoral thesis, retables sculptés à Bruxelles XVe – XVIe siècles. Stockholm, ; Aron Andersson, Medieval Sculpture in Production, formes et usages, ed. Brigitte D’Hainaut- Sweden III: Late Medieval Sculpture, Stockholm,  , pp. Zveny, Brussels, ; Vlaamse retabels: een –; Hannah de Moor, “Les retables brabançons en internationale reis langs laatmiddeleeuws beeldsnijwerk, Suède: dispersion, adaption et reception”, Perspective , ed. Ria De Boodt and Ulrich Schäfer, Leuven, ; and , pp. – and Hannah de Moor, “Moving Kim Woods, Imported Images. Netherlandish Late Gothic Altarpieces: Tracing the Provenance of Netherlandish Sculpture in England, c.–, Donington, .In Carved Altarpieces in Sweden”, Konsthistorisk tidskrift/ the field of art history, mobility of artists and objects are Journal of Art History ,No, , pp. –. The often an underlying explanatory concept in much Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother is included scholarship on developments of styles, forms and in more than % of the Netherlandish altarpieces in techniques in works of art. For art from the Netherlands Sweden ( of ), whereas the motif is present in less in particular, see the chapters in Art and Migration. than % of the ones made for churches in modern Netherlandish Artists on the Move, – Belgium, Netherlands and Germany ( of  listed in (Netherlandish Yearbook for Art History ), ed. Frits De Boodt and Schäfer, Vlaamse Retabels). These numbers, Scholten, Joanna Woodall and Dulcia Meijers, Leiden, of course, rely on preserved altarpieces only. . . The Meditationes vitae Christi, for long ascribed to . Jacobs, Early Netherlandish,p.. A recurrent theme in Pseudo-Bonaventure, is now believed to have been written scholarly literature on Netherlandish altarpieces painted for an anonymous Poor Clare by an anonymous author in by known and named individuals, an early and prominent an Italian convent in the mid-thirteenth century, see Sarah McNamer, Meditations on the Life of Christ: The example is Barbara G. Lane, The Altar and the Altarpiece.  Sacramental Themes in Early Netherlandish Painting, Short Italian Text, Notre Dame, and Peter Tóth and  Dávid Falvay, “New Light on the Date and Authorship of New York, . Also see Bret Rothstein, Sight and ” Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting, Cambridge, the Meditationes vitae Christi ,inDevotional Culture in ; Jessica Buskirk, “Hugo van der Goes’s Adoration of Late Medieval England and Europe: Diverse Imaginations of Christ’s Life, ed. Stephen Kelly and Ryan Perry, the Shepherds: Between Ascetic Idealism and Urban  – Networks in Late Medieval Flanders”, Journal of Turnhout, , pp. .    – Historians of Netherlandish Art ,No , , pp. ; . Brussels, KBR, MS II , fol.; Breckenridge, “Et Prima and Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Religion, ed. Bertram Vidit” ,p.. The motif is, however, also present in the  Kaschek, Jürgen Müller and Jessica Buskirk, Leiden, . Sacramentarium Gregorianum executed in Liège in the Religious values have, however, received relatively little eleventh century (Bamberg, Staatsbibliotek, MS Lit , fol. analytical attention in research on co-operatively ). This manuscript may have had less impact on the re- produced carved altarpieces. An important and welcome emergence of the motif in the late fifteenth and the exception is the discussion of the Tree of Jesse in relation sixteenth centuries. to religious values in Antwerp altarpieces by Susan L. Green in her book Tree of Jesse Iconography in Northern . Rogier van der Weyden’s oeuvre is extensively studied and Europe in Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, London, it is beyond the limits of this article to address this , pp. –. literature. For a recent and context-oriented chapter on the Miraflores triptych, see Francisco de Paula Canas . On religious reading and lay participation, see for example Gálvez, “Juan II de Castilla y el Tríptico de Miraflores: Sabrina Corbellini, Cultures of Religious Reading in the marco espiritual, proyección política y propaganda regia Late Middle Ages. Instructing the Soul, Feeding the Spirit, en torno a un donación real ()”,inRogier van der and Awakening the Passion, Turnhout, ; Sabrina Weyden y España, ed. Lorne Campbell and José Juan Corbellini, Mart van Duijn, Suzan Folkerts and Margriet Peréz Preciado, Madrid, , pp. –. Also see Katrin Hoogvliet, “Challenging the Paradigms: Holy Writ and Dyballa and Stephan Kemperdick, “A Look Back – Lay Readers in Late Medieval Europe”, Church History Johannes Taubert and the Investigation of the Miraflores and Religious Culture, , , –; and Journal of Altarpiece”, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art , Early Modern Christianity. Special Issue: Late Medieval No , . and Early Modern Bibles and their Readers ,No, . . Alfred Acres, “Rogier van der Weyden’s Painted Texts”, Artibus et Historiae ,No, , . . Arjun Appandurai, “Introduction: Commodities and the ” Politics of Values ,inThe Social Life of Things. . Acres, “Painted Texts”, pp. –. Commodoties in Cultural Perspective, ed. Arjun Appandurai, Cambridge, , pp. –,at. Also see . Nicola Sinclair, En route to the Ave: Rogier van der David Morgan, “Place and Instrumentality of Religious Weyden’s Miraflores Altarpiece and the nascent Rosary, Artefacts”, Kunst og kultur ,No, , pp. –. MA thesis, Philadelphia, . RESURRECTED CHRIST APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER IN LATE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDISH ALTARPIECES 185

. Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting. Its Origins movements’ religious texts on altarpieces is discussed in and Character, Cambridge,  [], p. . Niklas Gliesmann, Geschnitzte Kleinformatige Retabel aud Antwerpener, Brüsseler und Mechelener Produktion des . . John of Caulibus [sic], Meditations on the Life of Christ, und . Jahrhunderts. Herstellung, Form, Funktion, ed. C. Mary Stallings Taney, Anne Miller and Francis Petersberg, , pp. –, and in relation to painted X. Taney, Oxford, ,p.. altarpieces with devotional portraits by Ingrid Falque, . Breckenridge, “Et Prima Vidit”,p.. Devotional Portraits and Spiritual Exercise in Early Netherlandish Painting, Leiden, ,p.ff. . Breckenridge, “Et Prima Vidit”,p..   . Thomas à Kempis [Thomae Hemerken a Kempis], Opera . Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend. Readings on the omnia. V: Orationes et meditationes de vita Christi, ed. Saints, translated by Willian Granger Ryan, Princeton, NJ, Mich. Josephus Pohl, Freiburg, ; Thomas à Kempis, , : pp. –. However, illuminated copies of ’ Prayers and Meditations on the Life of Christ, transl. Voragine s text tend to include illuminations of the William Duthoit, London, . All subsequent references doubting Thomas, based on the account in John , –  to this oeuvre in the article itself will keep the Latin title . (Orationes), while references in the footnotes will be given . See e.g. Mary Immaculate Bodenstadt, Ludolphus the according to the edition applied for this study (Prayers Carthusian: Vita Christi. Introductory Volume, Salzburg, and Meditations).  “ ’ and Maureen Boulton, Degulleville s Pélérianage de . Thomas à Kempis, Prayers and Meditations,p. Jésus Christ: A Poem of Courtly Devotion”,inThe Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval Religious Literature, . There are, for example, no illuminations accompanying ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Duncan Robertson and the extract from Thomas’ Orationes in a book of hours Nancy Bradley Warren, New York and Basingstoke, , executed in the Northern Netherlands around  pp. –. The Meditationes was also disseminated in (Brussels, KBR, MS , ff. v–v). A book of hours the vernacular, translated into English as the Mirror of the from Zeeland dated  with excerpts from Thomas’ Blessed Life of Christ by Nicolas Love in , and into Orationes which were to be read in front of a crucifixis French as Le Livre doré des meditations de la vie de nostre also missing out on miniatures (KBR, MS II ), see seigneur Jesu Christ by Jean Galopes in –. Kathryn M. Rudy, Rubrics, Images, Indulgences in Late   ’ Medieval Netherlandish Manuscripts, Leiden, , pp. . St Birgitta s version of the encounter is mentioned only in  and . A late fifteenth century copy of Thomas’ passing by Breckenridge. Furthermore, yet unnoticed by Orationes made for the Carthusians in Basel executed by Breckenridge, the encounter between mother and son is  Netherlandish artists also lacks illuminations apart from a also vividly witnessed by Margery Kempe (d. after ), decorated initial B at the opening folio (Basel, see The Book of Margery Kempe, translated and with an Universitätsbibliothek, B X , ff.–v), see https://www. introduction and notes by Anthony Bale, Oxford, ,  – e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/ubb/B-X- with further pp. . bibliography.   . The Revelations of St Birgitta of Sweden. Vol. : Liber  “ ” – . See ISTC s.v. Opera, sermons, epistolae et alia opuscula. Caelestis Books VI VII, translated by Denis Searby and Although not printed in many editions, the book printed introduction and notes by Bridget Morris, Oxford, ,     by Nicolaus Ketelaer and Gerardus de Leempt in Utrecht p. (Chapter , verses and ). in  have been preserved in more than  copies. I am . St Birgitta dictated her visions to her confessor and they most grateful to Wim François for notifying me of the were written down in the ’s. The Revelationes exists in existence of the flexa marks and for giving me access to a number of Latin copies as well as copies in various the copy in Leuven (Maurits Sabbe Library, P inc B) vernaculars, see Jonathan Adams, The Revelations of St and to an as yet unpublished catalogue entry written by Birgitta. A Study and Edition of the Birgittine-Norwegian Rob Faesen. Texts, Swedish National Archives, E , Leiden, , . Panofsky, Early Netherlandish,p.. pp. –. . Panofsky, Early Netherlandish,p.. . For general overviews of the devotio moderna, see John Van Engen, Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life. The . For an example of the use of Antwerp protocols and Devotio Moderna and the World of the Later Middle Ages, documents for research into individuals, see David van Philadelphia,  and Die Devotio Moderna: Sozialer und der Linden, “Coping with Crisis. Career Strategies of Kultureller Transfer (–), ed. Dick E.H. de Boer Antwerp Painters after ”, De Zeventiende Eeuw, , and Iris Kwiatkowski, Müster, –. No , , pp. –. . On the movement’s textual legacy, see Anne Korteweg, . Sabrina Corbellini and Margriet Hoogvliet, “Artisans and “Books of Hours from the Northern Netherlands Religious Reading in Late Medieval Italy and Northern Reconsidered: The Uses of Utrecht and Windesheim and France (ca.–ca.)”, Journal of Medieval and Early Geert Grote’s Role as a Translator”,inBooks of Hours Modern Studies, , , pp. –. Also see Margriet Reconsidered, ed. Sandra Hindman and James Marrow, Hoogvliet, “Metaphorical Images of the Sacred Turnout, , pp. –. The implication from the Workshop. The confrérie de Puy Notre-Dame in Amiens 186 R. M. BØ

as ‘Hybrid Forum’”, Church History and Religious Culture, devotional practices encouraged by the devotio moderna ,No–, , pp. –. On reading and education and translations and disseminations of Vita Christi- in the next generations of artists, see The Artist as Reader. literature in the area, see Maxime Deurbergue, The Visual On Education and Non-Education of Early Modern Artists, Liturgy. Altarpiece Painting and Valencian Culture (– ed. Heiko Damm, Michael Thimann and Claus Zittel, ), Turnhout, , pp. –. Leiden, . . Anna Dlabačová, “Religious Practice and Experimental . Corbellini and Hoogvliet, “Artisans and Religious Book Production: Text and Image in an Alternative Reading”, pp. –. Layman’s “Book of Hours” in Print and Manuscript”, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art, ,No, . . Véronique Vandenbossche, ‘Item eenen dronckemansstoel.’ Een historisch onderzoek naar de . Ina Kok, Woodcuts in Incunabula Printed in the Low materiële cultuur: Boedelinventarisonderzoeck in de stad Countries,  Vols., Houten, , :p. (Kok Reference Antwerpen (–). Master-thesis, Leuven, ,p. Number .). An almost identical edition was printed . by Jacob Jacobszoon van der Meer or Christian Snellaert in Delft the  May , re-using Leeu’s version of the . The iconography of the images is deciphered from the motif. The motif is also included in the post-incunable abbreviated entries in the CD-ROM attached to version by Henrijk Eckert van Homberch, such as the Vandenbossche’s thesis, inventories B and B. For  edition of Leven ons liefs heeren Ihesu Christi, Uden, the subsequent decades, inventories from – Museum voor Religieuze Kunst, Inv. . show that almost half of the paintings in private households had a religious character and that devotional . Dlabačová, “Religious Practice”. On the Antwerp art motifs were the most numerous within this group, cf. marked, see e.g. Dan Ewing, “Marketing Art in Antwerp, Carolien De Staelen, Spulletjes en hun betekenis in een –: Our Lady’s Pand”, The Art Bulletin, , , commerciële metropol. Antwerpenaren en hun materiële pp. – and Filip Vermeylen, Painting for the Market: cultuur in de zestiende eeuw. Doctoral thesis, Antwerp, Commercialization of Art in Antwerp’s Golden Age, ,p.. Also see Bert de Munck, “Artisans, Products Turnhout, . Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut of the scene, and Gifts: Rethinking the History of Material Culture in executed for the Small Passion and published in Early Modern Europe”, Past and Present, , , pp. Nuremberg in –, London British Museum, Inv. E, –. . , may have been equally instrumental at a slightly later stage, possibly in the wake of Dürer’s travels in the . Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels, Inv. No. Netherlands in –. On Dürer’sinfluence on VdP and Inv. No. V.. Netherlandish altarpieces, also see Antwerpse Retables, : . École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, Inv. M pp. –. . . Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, MS W, fol. . The . Rogier van der Weyden –. Master of Passion, ed. artist is not identified, but the miniatures are all in the Lorne Campbell and Jan Van der Stock, Zwolle, , pp. style of the Bedford Master. The original female owner is –. unknown, too; the replacement at Matins in the Hours of the Virgin makes it likely she had an attachment to the . The altarpiece painted by the Master of the Ehningen Franciscans, for example by having a Franciscan almoner Retable is now in Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; the one by the or confessor. In this book of hours, however, Christ anonymous follower (possibly the Master of the Prado appears carrying the cross itself instead of the more Redemption) is in the National Gallery of Art, commonly found crozier and/or banner. Washington; the triptych painted by the Master of the Ursula Legend is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, . The occurrence of the motif in German altarpieces is New York. For the latter two, see L’héritage de Rogier van always linked to the Virgin such as in the altarpiece der Weyden. La peinture à Bruxelles –, ed. executed in the workshop of Veit Stoss in , now in the Véronique Bücken and Griet Steyaert, Tielt, , pp. Nonnberg abbey, Austria. Two Netherlandish examples of –. On Queen Isabella’s demand, an exact copy of the motif being applied as one of the Seven Joys of the the entire Miraflores Triptych was executed in c. by Virgin are the alabaster altarpieces in Brou and in Sint- Juan de Flandes (the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Salvador, Bruges, see Ragnhild M. Bø, “The Seven Joys of New York and the Capila Real, Granada). In service of the the Virgin in Sculpture: Borman and Beyond”, queen, Juan painted two more versions (now in the forthcoming. For a similar employment of the motif in Gemäldegalerie, Berlin and National Gallery, London) of painting, see the triptych by Pieter Aertsen in Sint- the scene intended for inclusion in a large retable, see Leonardus, Zoutleeuw (). Chiyo Ishikawa, The Retablo de Isabel la Católica by Juan . Ria De Boodt, “La chronologie des retables anversois: état de Flandes and Michel Sittow, Turnhout, , pp. – de la question, nouvelles propositions et limites de and Matthias Weniger, Sittow, Morros, Juan de Flandes. l’étude”,inRetables brabançons des XVe et XVIe siècles, Drei Maler aus dem Norden am Hof Isabellas von pp. –. Kastilien, Kiel, , pp. –. As it were, the motif also re-emerged in Valencian painting at the turn of the . No known documents attest to the making of the sixteenth century, overlapping with the introduction of Strängnäs I, in large parts due to two almost RESURRECTED CHRIST APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER IN LATE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDISH ALTARPIECES 187

contemporary unfortunate events, the bombardments of c. now in Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, cf. https:// the Grand Place in Brussels in  and the fire in the www.vmfa.museum/piction/-/. Royal Palace in Stockholm in . In addition to guild . For Jan Genoots, see Claire Dumortier, “Jan Genoots, marks attesting to its Brussels origin, there is an sculpteur anversois du XVIe siècle”, Bulletin des Musées inscription on the painted wing with the Circumcision: Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, , , pp. –. Also see istud faciebatur in Bruxella. There is also an entry in the De Boodt, “La Chronologie”, pp. – and Ulrich Martyrologia ecclesiae Strengnense, Stockholm, Kungliga Schäfer, “Is It Possible to Describe the Personal Style of an Biblioteket, Cod. Holm. A , pointing to Rogge as the Antwerp Carver”,inConstructing Wooden Images, ed. commissioner, see Erik Bohrn, Sigurd Curman and Armin Carl Van de Velde, Hans Beckman, Joris Van Acker and Tuulse, Strängnäs domkyrka I: Medeltidens Frans Verhaeghe, Brussels, , pp. –. byggnadshistoire, Sveriges kyrkor : Text, Stockholm, ,p. and Aron Andersson and R. Axel Unnerbäck, . See Dumortier, “Jan Genoots”, and Schäfer, “Is It Strängnäs domkyrka II: Inredning, Sveriges kyrkor , Possible”. Whereas documents allow for Münstermaifeld Uppsala, , pp. –. For the latest attribution to the to be dated to , Botkyrka is generally dated to between many Bormans and up-date bibliography, see Borman. A  and . Schäfer has, however, argued for Botkyrka Family of Northern Renaissance Sculpture, ed. Marjane as Genoots’ signature work, finding the quality of the Debaene, London and Turnhout, , pp. –. The sculptural parts of this altarpiece comparatively superior painted wings of Strängnäs I are attributed to Colin de to Münstermaifeld. From this he deduces Botkyrka could Coter, see Catheline Périer-D’Ieteren, Les volets peints des have been made around , the year Genoots is retables bruxellois consevés en Suède et le rayonnement de inscribed in the Liggeren as a free master. If Botkyrka is Colyn de Coter, Stockholm, . indeed made this early, the co-existence of one carved and  “ ” one painted representation of the Resurrected Christ . See Ethan Matt Kavaler, Jan Borman the Story-Teller ,in Appearing to his Mother in Münstermaifeld may thus not Borman. A Family of Northern Renaissance Sculpture, pp. – – have been decisive for the motif being included as a ,at . painted image in Netherlandish altarpieces.  . The Antwerp altarpiece now in Elmpt was originally made . On the Master of the Von Groote Adoration, see the for the Grafenthal monastery close to Cleves. Two are in catalogue entries , , ,  and  in ExtravagAnt! A museums, Tongeren (National Gallery of Victoria, forgotten chapter of Antwerp Painting –, ed. Melbourne) and Jonsberg (Swedish History Museum, Kristin Lohse Belkin and Nico van Hout, Antwerp, , Stockholm). pp. –.  . In Strängnäs I, the coat of arms is placed on one of the . Jacobs, Early Netherlandish Altarpieces,p.. columns behind Pontius Pilate in the Ecce Homo scene. In   Strängnäs II, however, the coat of arms is placed in the . Jacobs, Early Netherlandish Carved Altarpieces,p. . architectural tracery of the predella. Its prominent . Jacobs, Early Netherlandish Carved Altarpieces,p. and position does indeed promote bishop Rogge, but its Yao-Fen You, “The ‘Infinite Variety’ of Netherlandish “ ” clinging nature means it may have been added upon Carved Altarpieces”,inNetherlandish Sculpture of the arrival or even at a later date. Sixteenth Century (Netherlandish Yearbook for History of  . In the Antwerp altarpiece from Tongeren, the pendant Art ), ed. Ethan Matt Kavaler, Frits Scholten and Joanna  –  small sculpted scene to the left is lost, but compared to the Woodall, Leiden, , pp. ,at . other Antwerp altarpieces with the scene present as a .In, there was a dispute between the Antwerp guild minor sculpture, it is likely to assume it was a Noli me masters and Genoots because the latter had unjustifiably tangere. For all these altarpieces, see the respective marked his sculptures, in , Genoots was accused of paragraphs in the literature listed in notes  and  above. selling an unmarked altarpiece to Helmond abbey and the . In the same way as the altarpieces with the motif in following year, he was found displaying an altarpiece at sculpture Some of the altarpieces with the motif included the Pand in which the doors were not correctly marked. ’ See Jan van der Stock, “Antwerps beeldhouwwerk: over de are now in museums: d Herbais-sous-Piétrain (Musée ” Royaux d’Art et d’Historie, Brussels), Château de Pagny praktijk van het merktekenen ,inMerken opmerken. (Philadelphia Museum of Art), Frustuna and Vårdnäs Merk- en meestertekens op kunstwerken in de zuidelijke (Swedish History Museum, Stockholm). The ones in Nederlanden en het Prinsbisdom Luik. Typologie en methode, ed. C. Van Vlierden and Maurits Smeyers, parish churches were not all made for these churches  – originally; the altarpiece now in Heimbach was originally Leuven, , pp. . commissioned for the Mariawald convent, established in . The altarpiece is now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. . The altarpiece now in Waase was commissioned for . In fact, there is not an established match to the a church in Stralsund and moved to Waase in . For Resurrected Christ Appearing to His Mother. From the the ones in Swedish parishes/museums, see de Moor, preserved altarpieces, it is most commonly paired with the “Moving Altarpieces”. Agony in the Garden (Pagny, Pont-à-Mousson, . As it is, the small wings in Botkyrka and Hökhuvud share d’Herbais-sous-Piétrain, Waatignies, Zoutleeuw) and the their mise-en-scene with an Antwerp painting from Mocking of Christ/ Ecce Homo (Münstermaifeld, 188 R. M. BØ

Schwerte, Botkyrka, Frustuna, Hökhuvud, Västerlövsta). altarpieces with the Resurrected Christ Appearing to His The encounter is also found paired with Christ in Limbo Mother that also contain devotional portraits, cf. Falque, (Nordingrå), the Temptation of Christ (Opitter), the Devotional Portraits: Catalogue, No.  (Welshpool) and Supper at Emmaus (Waase) and the Washing of the Feet No.  (Rouen). In Rouen, the motif is but a detail in the (Roskilde). When not found on the inside of the upper background of the Christ Taking Leave of His Mother. I wing, the encounter is paired with the Noli me tangere do not here include the many witnesses to the encounter (Vårdnäs) and Christ Taking leave on Mary (By). in versions of the motif in Late Medieval and Early Whichever scene is chosen to accompany the Resurrected Modern painting from the Iberian peninsula. Christ Appearing to His Mother, it is a scene from the . See Niklaus Largier, “Inner Senses – Outers Senses. The Gospels; making the resurrected Christ Appearing to His practice of emotions in Medieval Mysticism”,in Mother the only non-Biblical event included, except for Codierungen von Emotionen im Mittelalter/ Emotions and the Christ taking leave on his Mother which also derives Sensibilities in the Middle Ages, ed. C. Stephan Jaeger and from the Meditationes. Ingrid Kasten, Berlin and New York, , pp. – at – . Thomas à Kempis, Prayers and Meditations,p.. . For the notion of vision as a corporeal experience, also see Suzannah Biernoff, Sight and Embodiment in the   . Thomas à Kempis, Prayers and Meditations,p. . Middle Ages, Hampshire and New York,  and “ . On the practice of prayer in medieval treatises, see Largier, Thomas Lentes, Inneres Auge, ausseres Blick und heilige ” “Inner Senses – Outers Senses”. The scholarly literature Shau ,inFrömmigkeit im Mittelalter: Politisch-soziale on the relationship between text and image and on the Kontexte, visuelle Praxis, korperliche Ausdruckformen, ed.  – relation between texts, images and religious selves is Klaus Schreiner, Munich, , pp. . extensive and burgeoning. For further explorations of . See e.g. Lynn F. Jacobs, “The Thresholds of Altarpieces”, religious selves, see the chapters included in Image and in eadem, Thresholds and Boudaries. Liminality in Imagination of the Religious Self in Late Medieval and Netherlandish Art, Abingdon and New York, , pp. Early Modern Europe, ed. Reindert L. Falkenburg, Walter – and Jessica Barker, “Frustrated Seeing: Scale,  S. Melion and Todd M. Richardson, Turnhout, . Visibility, and a Fifteenth Century Portuguese Royal ”    – . London, BL, MS Add. ,f.v. See the digitized Monument , Art History, ,No , , pp. . manuscript and full bibliography at http://www.bl.uk/ . See Michael Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_ England –, Oxford, ,p.. &index=. . For ‘textual community,’ see Brian Stock, The Implications . Andrea G. Pearson, “Gendered Subject, Gendered of Literacy. Written Language and Models of Spectator: Mary Magdalene in the Gaze of Margaret of Interpretation in the th and th Centuries, Princeton, York”, Gesta, ,No, , pp. –,at. In this NJ, . Also see Barbara Rosenwein, Emotional article, Pearson posited the miniature is a noli me tangere, Communities in the Early Middle Ages, Ithaca, , pp. that Margaret of York is the Magdalene. Pearson holds – and the essays in Discovering the Riches of the this conflation to be true even if the meeting between the Word: Religious Reading in Late Medieval and Early Resurrected Christ and the duchess takes place indoor and Modern Europe, ed. Sabrina Corbellini, Margriet in front of a bed – the conventional mise-en-scene for the Hoogvliet and Bert Ramakers, Leiden and Boston, . meeting between the resurrected Christ and his mother. ’ . De Boodt and Schäfer, Vlaamse retabels, pp. – and Pearson s explorations of how the painter of the miniature “ ” – opted for an interior setting via the text and how De Boodt, La Chronologie , pp. . For Margaret’s viewing of it fashioned “a deeply layered Scandinavia, the only altarpieces which can be securely ” dated apart from the ones commissioned by Bishop Cordt subtext for the frontispiece are thought-provoking. In   pure pictorial terms, however, the bed and the interior Rogge, is Veckholm ( ) and Västerås ( ). The rather present an image of the duchess in lieu of the altarpiece in Ringsaker parish church (Norway) was commissioned by the parish priest Ansten Jonsson Skonk Virgin, and no less so if the bed is thought to allude to the   wish for a fecund marital union. Nevertheless, if Margaret who held the service between and . were as well versed in devotional literature as Pearson’s . Kim Woods, “Centres of Excellence”,inConstructing article suggests, she would probably also have been able to Wooden Images, pp. –,at. picture herself both as the Virgin and the Magdalene, by . Wolfgang Undorf, From Gutenberg to Luther. intervisually attending to the motif. Craig Harbison – elaborates on Breckenridge brief mention of the Transnational Print Cultures in Scandinavia , Leiden, , in particular pp. , ,  and . frontispiece, seeing the duchess as having taken the Virgin’s place, see Breckenridge, “Et prima vidit”,p., . Undorf, From Gutenberg to Luther,p.. note  and Craig Harbison, “Visions and Meditations in . On the Birgettines and their images and book culture, see Early Flemish Painting”, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly e.g. Eva Lindqvist Sandgren, “Book Illumination in the for the History of Art, ,No, , pp. –,at–. Bridgettine Abbey of Vadstena”,inMulieres religiosae: . Apart from the Paganotti Triptych, there are – to the best Shaping Female Spiritual Authority in the Medieval and of my knowledge – only two more examples of painted Early Modern Periods, ed. Imke de Gier and Veerle RESURRECTED CHRIST APPEARING TO HIS MOTHER IN LATE MEDIEVAL NETHERLANDISH ALTARPIECES 189

Fraeters, Turnhout, , pp. –; and Kathryn . Bert Hendrickx, Het schilderbezit van de Antwerpse burger M. Rudy, “Birgettines of the Netherlands: Experimental in the tweede helft van de zestiende eeuw: een socio- Printers and Colourists”,inPrinting Colour –. economische analyse. MA-thesis, Leuven, , pp. –. History, Techniques, Functions and Receptions, ed. Ad . In England, subsequent translations of the Prayers and Stijnman and Elisabeth Savage, Leiden, , pp. –. Meditations even erased the parts concerning the Virgin, . On this Brussels altarpiece with sculpture attributed to the see the introduction by William Duthoit in Thomas à – workshop of Jan Borman and with paintings to Jan van Kempis, Prayers and Meditations, pp. xxiii xxviii. Coninxlo and two followers of Colyn de Coter, see Aron . The chasuble is kept in Sint-Kwintens in Sint-Kwintens- Andersson, Vadstena klosterkyrka II Inredning. Sveriges Lennik, Belgium. kyrkor , Stockholm, , pp. –. The omission . Whereas the establishment of the Reformation in may be due to the fact that the iconography of the – – altarpiece is devoted to the Life of the Virgin – and indeed Denmark-Norway was a political or princely decision to the Rosary, thus linking the conceptual content to by Christian III, the Reformation in Sweden was a slow  Rogier’s Miraflores Triptych and rosary indulgences – and process. Starting with the election of Gustav Vasa in ,  not to the Passion. it only ended with the Uppsala synod in .

. The Revelations of St Birgitta Book VII,  (Chapter , verse ). Summary . See Lindqvist, Senmedeltida altaskåp,p..

. See e.g. Victoria Christman, Pragmatic Toleration: The Linked to the thirteenth century devotional Politics of Religious Heterodoxy in Early Reformation text Meditationes Vitae Christi, visual Antwerp, –, Rochester, NY, . For the material histories of Antwerp in the period, see Antwerp: representations of the Resurrected Christ Story of a Metropolis, th–th centuries, ed. Jan van der Appearing to His Mother appear in Italian Stock, Antwerp, . manuscripts, either of the Meditationes itself  . The circumstances concerning the commission of the or in other devotional treatises around . Roskilde altarpiece are unclear and anecdotal. It was probably transferred to Roskilde when the then royal The epitome of the motif, however, is probably chapel in Copenhagen was refurbished in the s, fi the depiction in the right panel of the although it is rst mentioned as present in the cathedral in fl  and as on display on the main altar only in . The Mira ores Triptych, painted by Rogier van der most detailed analysis of the altarpiece to date is Axel Weyden in Bruges in the s. Previously Bolvig, Altertavlen i Roskilde Domkirke, et ualmindeligt kunstværk, Copenhagen, . virtually unnoticed in art historical scholarship, the motif re-appears in . Aleksandra Lipinska, “Between Contestation and Re- invention. The Netherlandish Altarpieces in Turbulent Netherlandish carved altarpieces made Times (c.–)”,inNetherlandish Sculpture of the c.–. The earliest occurrence seems to th Century, pp. –,at. Because Roskilde is the only one of these six altarpieces with intact wings, we may be in the form of a minor sculpted scene in the not know if the motif was included in the other five – or Brussels altarpieces now known as Strängnäs I, indeed in similar altarpieces now lost. yet its more common inclusion is as a painted . See for example Ilmari Karimies, “Martin Luther’s Early scene on the inside of the small upper wing to Theological Anthropology: From Parts of the Soul to the Human Person as One Subject”,inSubjectivity and the viewer’s right. Without dismissing the Selfhood in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Jari effects of patronage, commissions and the Kaukua and Tomas Ekenberg, Berlin, ,pp.–. circulation of models, I will argue for the  “ ”  . De Munck, Artisans, Products and Gifts ,p. . inclusion as partly resulting from artists’ . Ewing, “Marketing Art”, pp. –; Lipinska, “Between increased partaking in religious reading due to Contestation and Re-Invention”, pp. –; Bert De Munck, “Skills, Trust and Changing Consumer the dissemination of Vita Christi literature in Preferences: The Decline of Antwerp’s Craft Guilds from the Netherlands. As it were, however, the the Perspective of the Product Market, ca.– ca.”, International Review of Social Historyo, ,N , , pp. motif appears proportionally more frequent in –. the altarpieces imported to Scandinavia than 190 R. M. BØ elsewhere, allowing for discussions about the Ragnhild M. Bø iconographical program in altarpieces made Dep. of Archaeology, University of Oslo, for export and the possibility of the Conservation and History, appreciation of the scene in the north is to be P.O. Box , Blindern, traced not to Vita Christi-literature in general,  Oslo but to the encounter between mother and son Norway as referenced in the visions of St Birgitta. E-mail: [email protected]