Saint Barbara

1440/1460

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    woodcut, hand-colored in red lake, yellow, green, and rose

  • Credit Line

    Rosenwald Collection

  • Dimensions

    image: 18.4 x 12 cm (7 1/4 x 4 3/4 in.)
    sheet: 20.9 x 15 cm (8 1/4 x 5 7/8 in.)
    overall (external frame dimensions): 39.4 x 31.8 cm (15 1/2 x 12 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1943.3.585

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Schreiber, Vol. IX, no. 1250, State b

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Sale, C. G. Boerner, Leipzig, Cat. 165, 6-7 May 1930, no. 510). (Charles Sessler, Philadephia); sold 20 August 1930 to Lessing J. Rosenwald, Jenkintown, PA; gift 1943 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1941

  • The First Century of Printmaking 1400-1500, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1941, no. 18.

1956

  • Selected Prints from the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, City Art Museum, St. Louis, MO, 1956.

1965

  • Fifteenth-Century Woodcuts and Metalcuts from the Collection of the National Gallery of Art, NGA, 1965-1966, no. 197, repro.

2005

  • Origins of European Printmaking: Fifteenth-Century Woodcuts and Their Public, NGA and Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, 2005-2006, no. 99, repro.

Bibliography

1926

  • Schreiber, Wilhelm Ludwig. Handbuch de Holz- und Metailschnitte des XV Jahrhunderts. 8 vols. Leipzig: Verlag Karl W. Hierseman, 1926-1930.

1965

  • Field, Richard S. Fifteenth Century Woodcuts and Metalcuts from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. Exh. cat. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1965: no. 197.

Inscriptions

top, in block: Sancta Barbara vgo (Saint Barbara virgin); at right, by hand in black ink: Barbara virgo dei . da locum requei [sic] . / Quem possedisti . moriens pro nomine cristi. (Barbara, virgin of God, give us a place of rest, you who have earned it by dying in the name of Christ.); at left, by hand in black ink: Obtineas genti . te puro corde colenti . / Nunc veniam gratam . post hoc vita (May you obtain for the people who worship you with a pure heart now a much appreciated pardon and also eternal life.)
[translations from Parshall, Peter, and Rainer Schoch. Origins of European Printmaking: Fifteenth-Century Woodcuts and Their Public. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2005, p. 312.]

Watermarks

crossed keys, top half

Wikidata ID

Q64953031

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