The Death of Saint Clare

c. 1400/1410

Master of Heiligenkreuz

Artist, Austrian, active c. 1395 - 1420

A dozen people surround a woman reclining in a bed in front of a gleaming gold background in this vertical painting. All the people have pale skin. Red curtains drape from a shallow awning hanging over the head of the bed to our right, and the foot of the bed almost reaches the left side of the panel. The woman on the bed, Saint Clare, lies back against pillows with her hands crossed over her chest and her eyes closed. A white cloth covers her body from the waist down. She and two women attending to her from behind the head of the bed wear nun’s habits with black robes and head coverings over high-necked white collars. A row of five women line up along the far side of the bed, looking at Saint Clare. They all have blond hair, pointed noses and rounded cheeks, and they all have crowns surrounded by halos, which have been punched into the gold leaf background. Their dresses are in shades of vivid blue, forest green, white, or burgundy red and gold. Each holds a different object, including one with what looks like the model of a castle tower and another a small basket of flowers. The woman closest to Saint Clare holds the nun’s face in her hands. On our side of the bed, two more blond women kneel and lean onto the bed. One near the foot of the bed wears a maroon-red and gold brocade robe and holds a tiny dragon. The other kneels near Saint Clare, wearing royal-blue robes, and is accompanied by a minuscule sheep. Two smaller, seated women flank the woman in blue on our side of the bed. They are about half the size of the other people, and they wear nun’s habits but with gray robes rather than black. Both look at open books in their laps. Two blond, winged angels hover within the awning over Saint Clare’s head swinging incense burners. A bearded, haloed man in a blue field at the top center of the panel and holds a tiny, crowned person, and looks down at Saint Clare. The gold background is punched and incised with a decorative band at the inner edge of the panel, and also to create regiments of musicians and winged angels along the top quarter of the composition.

Media Options

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Saint Clare, a wealthy woman from the central Italian town of Assisi, gave up all her possessions to pursue the goals of poverty and service preached by Saint Francis. She founded an order of nuns known as the Poor Clares, which was recognized by the Pope in 1253. This painting depicts the vision of the death of Saint Clare as experienced by one of her followers, Sister Benvenuta of Diambra.

In the vision of Saint Benvenuta, the Virgin Mary and a procession of virgin martyrs appeared to Saint Clare on her deathbed. Here Mary, dressed in a rich brocade robe, supports Saint Clare's head, while the other elegantly robed and crowned saints follow behind, identified by the tiny attributes they hold.

The work of the Master of Heiligenkreuz, who was probably active in Lower Austria, illustrates the cosmopolitan aspect of the International Style, which flourished around 1400. While his exaggerated figures with their bulbous foreheads and clinging drapery are characteristically Austrian, the anonymous painter must also have been aware of the most advanced art produced at the courts of Paris and Prague. Thus the surface of the panel is worked in a variety of different techniques to fashion a particularly splendid object.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication German Paintings of the Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/german-painting-fifteenth-through-seventeenth-centuries.pdf

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 39

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    painted surface: 66.3 x 54 cm (26 1/8 x 21 1/4 in.)
    support: 67.5 x 55.3 cm (26 9/16 x 21 3/4 in.)
    framed: 85.7 x 74.3 x 5.7 cm (33 3/4 x 29 1/4 x 2 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1952.5.83

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly the Convent of the Poor Clares, Eger (Cheb), Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia), or Eger (Erlau), Hungary.[1] (Karl Schäfer, Munich); (Walter Schnackenberg, Munich), 1921/1922-1951;[2] in 1943 a one-third share was acquired from Schnackenberg by Carl Langbehn, Munich, and passed by inheritance to his mother, Marta Langbehn.[3] owned jointly by (Seiler & Co., Walter Schnackenberg, and Alfred Müller, Munich);[4] sold 1951 to (M. Knoedler & Co., New York, with Pinakos, Inc. [Rudolf Heinemann]);[5] purchased 1951 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[6] gift 1952 by exchange to NGA.
[1] Alfred Stange, Deutsche Malerei der Gotik, 11 vols., Berlin and Munich, 1934-1961: 11:4. In a letter of 13 February 1965 to Fern Rusk Shapley, in NGA curatorial files, Stange gave Prince Joseph Clemens of Bavaria as the source, but noted that while there was a convent of the Poor Clares in Bohemian Eger in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Clemens did not specify Czechoslovakia or Hungary and so both were possible. There is no verification for the statement in Colin Eisler, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian, Oxford, 1977: 234, that the panel may have belonged to the Kings of Saxony.
[2] English translation of Walter Schnackenberg letter of 12 April 1951 in files of M. Knoedler & Co., New York, giving date of acquisition from Karl Schäfer. Stange's letter of 13 February 1965 also mentions Schäfer as handling the painting.
[3] Schnackenberg letter of 12 April 1951. Carl and Marta Langbehn are listed as owners in a Knoedler brochure, in NGA curatorial files.
[4] M. Knoedler & Co. account book.
[5] M. Knoedler & Co. account book.
[6] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2142.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1926

  • Lent by Walter Schnackenberg to the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, in 1926.

2006

  • Sigismundus rex et imperator: art et culture au temps de Sigismond de Luxembourg, 1387-1437, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest; Musée national d'histoire et d'art, Luxembourg, 2006, no. 7.40, repro.

2019

  • Master of Heiligenkreuz, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 2019, no. 4, figs. 7, 14 (detail), color repro. 75.

2021

  • Imperial Splendor: The Art of the Book in the Holy Roman Empire, ca. 800-1500, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 2021 - 2022, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 106.

Bibliography

1907

  • "Meister von Heiligenkreuz." In Hans Vollmer, ed. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler ("Thieme-Becker"). 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950: 37(1950):144-145.

1924

  • Buchner, Ernst. "Eine Gruppe deutscher Tafelbilder vom Anfang des XV. Jahrhunderts." In Buchner Ernst and Karl Feuchtmayer, eds. Oberdeutsche Kunst der Spätgotik und Reform. (Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Kunst. 2 vols.) Augsburg, 1924: 1:3, fig. 2, 4-5.

1926

  • Baldass, Ludwig. Review of Oberdeutsche Kunst der Spätgotik und Reformationszeit by Ernst Buchner and Karl Feuchtmayr, eds. In Belvedere 9/10 (1926): 133-136.

  • Suida, Wilhelm. Österreichs Malerei in der Zeit Erzherzog Ernst des Eisernen und König Albrecht II. Vienna, 1926: 25.

1929

  • Baldass, Ludwig. "Die Wiener Tafelmalerei von 1410-1460. (Neuerwerbungen des Wiener Kunsthistorischen Museums)." Der Cicerone 21 (1929): 66.

1934

  • Stange, Alfred. Deutsche Malerei der Gotik. 11 vols. Berlin and Munich, 1934-1961. Munich, 1961: 11:4.

1936

  • Oettinger, Karl. "Zur Malerei um 1400 in Österreich." Jahrbuch der Künsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien n.s. 10 (1936): 78.

1938

  • Ring, Grete. "Primitifs français." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 80, 6e période, tome 19 no. 895 (mars 1938): 158.

1942

  • Sterling, Charles. Les peintres du Moyen Âge: la peinture française. Paris, 1942: 15, no. 9.

1943

  • Larsen-Roman, Erik and Lucy Larsen-Roman. "Les Origines provençales du Maître de Heiligenkreuz." Apollo. Chronique des Beaux-Arts no. 18 (1943): 17-19.

1949

  • Ring, Grete. A Century of French Painting 1400-1500. London, 1949: 199, no. 59.

1954

  • Ferguson, George. Signs and Symbols in Christian Art. New York, 1954: fig. 96. (New York, 1959: fig. 96; New York, 1961: fig. 74.)

1956

  • "The Kress Collection." Arts 30, no. 6 (March 1956): 48, 49, repro.

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 120-123, no. 46, repro.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred. "Crystal Anniversary in the Capital." Art News 55, no. 1 (March 1956): 26, repro.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 299, repro.

1960

  • Broadley Hugh T. German Painting in the National Gallery of Art (Booklet no. 9 in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC). Washington, 1960: 2, 12-13, color repro.

1961

  • Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 18, 21, [218], color fig. 16.

  • Musper, Heinrich Theodor. Gotische Malerei nördlich der Alpen. Cologne, 1961: 119, repro.

1962

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 50, color repro.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 110, repro. 111.

  • "Austria, Bohemia, Tirol: Paintings." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 50, no. 7 (September 1963): 201, under no. 3.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 85.

  • Cooke, Hereward Lester. Galeria Nacional de Washington. Translated by Maria Teresa de la Cruz. Madrid, 1965: 216-217.

1966

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 1:100-101, color repro.

1968

  • Cuttler, Charles D. Northern Painting, from Pucelle to Bruegel: Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries. New York, 1968: 51.

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 75, repro.

  • Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. (Great Museums of the World.) New York, 1968: 98, 99, color repro.

  • Galvan, Jose Maria Moreno, ed. Galleria Nazionale di Washington. Madrid, 1968: 35, 38-39, fig. 25, 31.

1969

  • Steingräber, Erich. "Nachträge und Marginalien zur französisch-niederländischen Goldschmiedekunst des frühen 15. Jahrhunderts." Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums (1969): 32, 34, fig. 6.

1970

  • Musper, Heinrich Theodor. Altdeutsche Malerei. Cologne, 1970: 28, 92, no. 18, repro. 93.

1974

  • Stechow, Wolfgang. "Master of Heiligenkreuz, ca. 1400." The Cleveland Museum of Art. European Paintings Before 1500. Catalogue of Paintings: Part One. Cleveland, 1974: 4-5, repro.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 222, repro. 223.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 147, no. 154, repro. 146.

  • Cinotti, Mia, ed. The National Gallery of Art of Washington and Its Paintings. Great Galleries of the World. Edinburgh, 1975: no. 92, repro.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 232-236, figs. 225-226.

1979

  • Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 51-52, pl. 33.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 5, repro. 3.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 254, repro.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 56, repro.

  • Ströter-Bender, Jutta. Die Muttergottes: Das Marienbild in der christlichen Kunst, Symbolik und Spiritualität. (DuMont Taschenbücher 282) Cologne, 1992: 132-133, fig. 39.

1993

  • Hand, John Oliver, with the assistance of Sally E. Mansfield. German Paintings of the Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1993: 127-132, color repro. 129.

1995

  • Löcher, Kurt. "Rezensionen." Review of German Paintings of the Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries, by John Oliver Hand with the assistance of Sally E. Mansfield. Kunstchronik 43 no. 1 (January 1995): 18.

1996

  • Donahue, M. Patricia. Nursing, The Finest Art: An Illustrated History. St Louis, 1996: 128-129, repro.

1998

  • Oberhaidacher, Jörg. “Zur kunstgeschichtlichen Herkunft und Bedeutung des Meisters von Heiligenkreuz.” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege 52 (1998): 501, 510, 514, fig. 533.

1999

  • Southgate, M. Therese. "The Cover: Master of Heiligenkreuz, The Death of Saint Clare." Journal of the American Medical Association 282, no. 19 (17 November 1999): cover, 1798, color repro.

  • Oberhaidacher, Jörg. “Zur Datierung der Güssiger Maria-gravida-Tafel in der Ungarischen Nationalgalerie in Budapest.” Pantheon ser. 2, 57 (1999): 59-60, fig. 7.

  • Barnay, Sylvie. Le ciel sur la terre: Les apparitions de la Viere au Moyen Age. Paris, 1999: 115, color repro.

2001

  • Pernod, Régine. La Femme au temps des Cathédrales. Paris, 2001: 38-39, color repro.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 60-61, no. 46, color repro.

Inscriptions

on left-hand page of book held by nun at lower right: Dii labia

Wikidata ID

Q9395658

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