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Fra Filippo Lippi, 'Saint Bernard's Vision of the Virgin', 1447

Key facts
Full title Saint Bernard's Vision of the Virgin
Artist Fra Filippo Lippi
Artist dates born about 1406; died 1469
Date made 1447
Medium and support egg tempera on wood
Dimensions 94.3 × 106 cm
Acquisition credit Bought, 1854
Inventory number NG248
Location Not on display
Collection Main Collection
Saint Bernard's Vision of the Virgin
Fra Filippo Lippi
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This panel shows a twelfth-century monk, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, having a vision of the Virgin Mary. It is shaped like an ‘overdoor’ – a picture designed to hang above a doorway – and was probably made to decorate the Palazzo Vecchio (the town hall) in Florence; Saint Bernard was patron saint of the building.

Bernard is depicted wearing a simple hooded cloak, seated in a rocky wooded setting. He has retreated there to read, write and immerse himself in spiritual contemplation; craggy rocks serve as a seat and desk. The paint surface is very worn but very faint traces of a pen in his right hand are still visible and his ink stand sits on top of his writing box.

Lippi’s son Filippino made a painting of this subject in which the Virgin is clearly dictating to the saint – our picture probably tells the same story.

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