The Mass of Saint Gregory

c. 1490/1500

Israhel van Meckenem

Artist, German, c. 1445 - 1503

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    engraving on two joined sheets of laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 46.5 × 29.4 cm (18 5/16 × 11 9/16 in.)

  • Accession

    1954.12.91

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Lehrs, Vol. 9, p.289, no. 354, State i/ii

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Richard H. Zinser, Forest Hills, NY); purchased by Lessing J. Rosenwald [1891-1979], 1953; gift to NGA, 1954.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1960

  • Gothic to Baroque, Allentown Art Museum, 1960, no. 69.

1967

  • Fifteenth Century Engravings of Northern Europe from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., NGA, 1967-1968, no. 215, repro.

2023

  • Art of Enterprise: Israhel van Meckenem and his Late Medieval Print Shop, Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2023-2024.

Bibliography

1908

  • Lehrs, Max. Geschichte und kritischer Katalog des deutschen, niederlandischen und franzosischen Kupferstichs im XV. Jahrhundert. 9 vols. and 1 plate vol. Vienna: Gesellschaft fur vervielfaltigende Kunst, 1934: Vol. 9, no. 354, i/ii.

1949

  • Hollstein, F.W.H. et al. German engravings, etchings and woodcuts ca. 1400-1700. Blaricum: A.L. van Gendt B.V., 1986: Vol. XXIV, no. 354, i/ii.

1967

  • Shestack, Alan. Fifteenth Century Engravings of Northern Europe from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. Exh. cat. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1967: no. 215.

1993

  • Parshall, Peter. "Imago contrafacta: Images and Facts in the Northern Renaissance." Art History 16:4 (1993): 557-558, pl. 5.

Inscriptions

center, in image on altar cloth, in plate: I jehsus maria M; bottom center, in image, in plate: IVM [artist's monogram]; across bottom, in plate: Quotiens quis coram armis christi quicumque orationes apostolicas cum quicumque Pater Noster et Ave Maria devote dixerit XX milibus annorum a penis purgatorii exonoratus erit (Whoever recites in the presence of the arms of Christ the Apostle's Creed, the Pater Noster, and the Ave Maria, and as often as he does so, shall be pardoned 20,000 years of punishment in purgatory [translation from Alan Shestack, "Fifteenth Century Engravings of Northern Europe." Exh. catalogue, Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1967, no. 215.]); verso, at center, in graphite by a later hand: C 28708 / B.102; at lower left, in graphite by a later hand: Del / B.102

Markings

none

Watermarks

present on both sheets: crowned shield with two fish and two fleurs-de-lis (Lehrs 35)

Wikidata ID

Q65358481

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