VISUAL AND MATERIAL CULTURE, 1300-1700 Williams Anne L. Williams Satire, Veneration, and St. Joseph in Art, c. 1300-1550 Satire, Veneration, and St. Joseph in Art, in c. 1300-1550 Joseph St. and Veneration, Satire, FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS Satire, Veneration, and St. Joseph in Art, c. 1300–1550 FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS Visual and Material Culture, 1300–1700 A forum for innovative research on the role of images and objects in the late medieval and early modern periods, Visual and Material Culture, 1300–1700 publishes monographs and essay collections that combine rigorous investigation with critical inquiry to present new narratives on a wide range of topics, from traditional arts to seemingly ordinary things. Recognizing the fluidity of images, objects, and ideas, this series fosters cross-cultural as well as multi-disciplinary exploration. We consider proposals from across the spectrum of analytic approaches and methodologies. Series Editor Dr. Allison Levy, an art historian, has written and/or edited three scholarly books, and she has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, from the Nation- al Endowment for the Humanities, the American Association of University Wom- en, the Getty Research Institute, the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library of Harvard University, the Whiting Foundation and the Bogliasco Foundation, among others. www.allisonlevy.com. FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS Satire, Veneration, and St. Joseph in Art, c. 1300–1550 Anne L. Williams Amsterdam University Press FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS This book was published with support from the Kress Foundation and the International Center of Medieval Art, the Historians of Netherlandish Art, and the College of William & Mary. Cover illustration: Master of the Little Garden of Paradise and his Workshop, The Doubt of Joseph, Strasbourg, c. 1430. Tempera on pine panel, 114 x 114 cm. Inv. MBA 1482, from the hospice of Saint-Marc, Strasbourg, on loan from the Hospices Civils de Strasbourg, Musée de l’Œuvre Notre Dame, Strasbourg. Photo courtesy of the Musées de Strasbourg, M. Bertola. Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Newgen/Konvertus isbn 978 94 6298 374 8 e-isbn 978 90 4853 411 1 doi 10.5117/9789462983748 nur 685 © A.L. Williams / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2019 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher. FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS Table of Contents List of Illustrations 7 Acknowledgements 13 Introduction 15 Ridicule or Reverence? A History of Scholarship on St. Joseph 22 Sanctity, Humor, and the Gap between Material Reality and Religious Experience 29 1. Joseph’s Hosen, Devotion, and Humor: The ‘Domestic’ Saint and the Earliest Material Evidence of His Cult 37 1.1 Introduction: Rethinking ‘Higher’ Levels of Literature and Art 37 1.2 Joseph’s Hosen and Early Material Evidence of His Cult 42 1.2.1 The Ivories 51 1.2.2 The Power of Relics in Fourteenth-Century Europe 54 1.2.3 The Hosen and Humor in Royal Commissions: The Antwerp-Baltimore Polyptych of Philip the Bold 57 1.3 Nutritor Domini and Bumbling Old Fool: The Hamburg Petri-Altar 63 1.3.1 The Kindelwiegenspiele 78 1.4 Conclusion 83 2. Satire Sacred and Profane 91 2.1 Introduction: Laughter as Veneration 91 2.2 From the Margins to the Center: Humor and the ‘World Upside Down’ in Sacred Art and Ritual 94 2.3 Diaper-Washer Josephs and the ‘Battle for the Pants’ 103 2.4 Joseph, the Ass, the Peasant, and the Fool 109 2.5 Complexities of Early Modern Humor: The Virtue of the ‘Natural Man’ 123 2.6 Dirty Old Man: The Bawdy and the Chaste Saint 128 2.7 Conclusion: Satirizing the Sacred 142 3. Urbanitas, the Imago Humilis, and the Rhetoric of Humor in Sacred Art 151 3.1 Sacred Humor beyond Edification 151 3.2 Urbanitas, Facetia, and Courtliness in Medieval and Renaissance Europe 157 3.3 Dissimulatio, Christian Irony, and the Imago Humilis 162 3.4 The Art of Rhetorical Humor and the Artist as vir facetus: Early Humanism and Social Exchange 167 3.5 Conclusion 181 FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS 6 SATIRE, VENERATION, AND ST. JOSEPH IN ART, C. 1300–1550 4. The Miserly Saint and the Multivalent Image: Sanctity, Satire, and Subversion 187 4.1 The Early Modern paterfamilias and the Profit Economy 187 4.2 Treasurer or Miser? 190 4.3 Satire, Subversion, and the Multivalent Image 216 4.4 Conclusion 220 Conclusion 225 Index 231 FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS List of Illustrations Color Plates Plate 1. Mosan/Netherlandish artist, Nativity, panel of the Antwerp-Baltimore Polyptych of Philip the Bold, c. 1400. Tempera and gold leaf on wood, 33 x 21 cm. Inv. MMB.0001.1-2, Mayer van den Bergh Museum, Antwerp. Photo courtesy of the Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp. Plate 2. Conrad von Soest, Nativity, detail of the Wildunger-Altar, left wing, 1404. Tempera on wood, 188 x 152 cm. Evangelische Stadtkirche Bad Wildungen. Photo courtesy of the Yorck Project/Wikimedia Commons. Plate 3. Mosan/South Netherlandish artist, detail of a tabernacle with the Nativity and Flight into Egypt, c. 1395–1400. Tempera on gilded oak, 137 x 47.5 cm (full size). Inv. MMB.0002, Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp. Photo courtesy of the Museum Mayer van den Bergh. Plate 4 Boucicaut Master and workshop, The Adoration of the Magi, c. 1415–1420. Tempera colors, gold paint, gold leaf, and ink on parchment. Leaf: 20.5 x 14.8 cm, Ms. 22, fol. 72. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum. Plate 5. Jean le Tavernier, Adoration of the Magi, Book of Hours of Philip of Burgundy, 1450–1460. The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Ms. 76, fol. 143v. Photo courtesy of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. Plate 6. Master of the Legend of St. Barbara, Adoration of the Magi, central panel of a triptych, c. 1480. Oil on oak, 90.7 x 96.7 cm. Inv. 234, Galleria Colonna, Rome. Photo © Galleria Colonna, Rome. Plate 7. Master of the Little Garden of Paradise and his Workshop, The Doubt of Joseph, Strasbourg, c. 1430. Tempera on pine panel, 114 x 114 cm. Inv. MBA 1482, from the hospice of Saint-Marc, Strasbourg, on loan from the Hospices Civils de Strasbourg, Musée de l’Œuvre Notre Dame, Strasbourg. Photo courtesy of the Musées de Strasbourg, M. Bertola. Plate 8. Master of the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Holy Family at Supper, detail from the Book of Hours of Catherine of Cleves, c. 1440. Tempera on vellum, 19.2 x 13 cm. Ms. M.927, pp. 150–151, Morgan Library and Museum, New York. Photo courtesy of the Morgan Library and Museum. Plate 9. Circle of the Master of the Fröndenberger Marienretabels (after Conrad von Soest), Blankenberch Retabel, right wing, inside, Adoration of the Magi (detail), c. 1430–1440. Oil on wood, 154.5 x 396 cm (overall). Inv. 6 WKV, LWL- Museum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster (Westfälisches Landesmuseum), loan from the Westfälischer Kunstverein. Photo courtesy of the LWL- Museum für Kunst und Kultur. FOR PRIVATE AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS 8 SATIRE, VENERATION, AND ST. JOSEPH IN ART, C. 1300–1550 Plate 10. Bartolo di Fredi, Adoration of the Magi, panel from an altarpiece, 1385– 1388. Tempera on panel, 195 x 163 cm. Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena. Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism, Museale della Toscana, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. Black and White Figures 1.1 Ivory tabernacle, Paris, c. 1300. 16.8 x 15.1 x 2.1 cm. Inv. 747, Museo Civico Medievale, Bologna. Photo by the author, courtesy of the Comune di Bologna, Istituzione Bologna Musei I Musei Civici d’Arte Antica. 1.2 Psalter, Upper or High Rhine, c. 1200. Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg i. Br., Historische Sammlungen, inv. Hs. 24, fol. 11v. Photo © Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg i. Br./Historische Sammlungen. 1.3 Andrea da Fiesole, Nativity, c. 1400. Marble relief. Inv. 1646, Museo Civico Medievale, Bologna. Photo by the author, courtesy of the Comune di Bologna, Istituzione Bologna Musei I Musei Civici d’Arte Antica. 1.4 Master Bertram, altarpiece and retable of the former high altar of St. Peter’s Church in Hamburg (Grabower Altar), c. 1379–1383. Retable, double-winged with sculpted inside, oil tempera on oak wood, H: 217.5 cm. Outside of the right inner wing, ‘Nativity,’ inv. no. 500g/5. Hamburger Kunsthalle. Photo: bpk Bildagentur/Hamburger Kunsthalle/Elke Walford/ Art Resource, New York. 1.5 Hans Multscher, Nativity, Sterzinger Altar, 1456–1458. Hans Multscher Museum, Vipiteno, South Tyrol. Photo by the author, courtesy of the Hans Multscher Museum. 1.6 Master of the Holy Kinship the Elder, Triptych of the Holy Kinship (detail from the inside of the left wing: Nativity), c. 1420. Painting on oak. Inv. WRM 59, Wallraf-Richartz Museum & Fondation Corboud, Cologne. Photo by the author. 1.7 Detail of a Nativity scene from a carved altarpiece from Brabant, sixteenth century. Sankt Maria zur Wiese, Soest.