Full title | The Soul of Saint Bertin carried up to God: From Right Hand Shutter |
---|---|
Artist | Simon Marmion |
Artist dates | active 1449; died 1489 |
Series | Fragments of Shutters from the St Bertin Altarpiece |
Date made | about 1459 |
Medium and support | Oil on oak |
Dimensions | 57.7 x 20.5 cm |
Acquisition credit | Bought, 1860 |
Inventory number | NG1302 |
Location | Room 64 |
Art route(s) | A |
Collection | Main Collection |
Two angels carry a small, naked figure upwards. Below is part of a roof; above, God the Father sits on a Gothic throne, ringed by angels with multiple wings. This is the top part of the right wing of an altarpiece that stood on the high altar of the Abbey of St Bertin in Saint-Omer, northern France.
The naked figure is the soul of Saint Bertin, whose death scene originally appeared immediately below. On the back, the top part of a Gothic stone canopy is painted in grisaille (in shades of black, white and grey), identical to that on the other wing, A Choir of Angels. When the wings were closed, the canopies would have have covered up the gilded silver Crucifixion in the centre of the shrine.
A small, naked figure, supported in a white cloth, is being carried upwards by two angels. Below is part of a roof; above, God the Father sits on a Gothic throne, ringed by angels with multiple wings.
This is the top part of the right wing of an altarpiece that stood on the high altar of the Abbey of St Bertin in Saint-Omer, northern France. The naked figure is the soul of Saint Bertin, whose death scene originally appeared immediately below; he was abbot of Saint-Omer in the late seventh and early eighth century and took part in the conversion of the pagan French tribes to Christianity. The top of the left wing, A Choir of Angels, is also in the National Gallery’s collection, while the main parts of the wings, which show scenes from the life of Saint Bertin, are now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.
Technical analysis shows us that Simon Marmion was designing or at least adapting these pictures as he went along, and tells us much about his working methods. The circular aureole around God the Father has been drawn with a compass; the hole made by the point is visible in the middle of the draperies in an infrared reflectogram. The horizontal lines of the slates on the roof were incised in the chalk ground, and there are differences between the underdrawing and the final painted version (God’s crown is smaller, and there are minor changes to the throne, the figure of Saint Bertin and the angels‘ draperies).
On the back, the top part of a Gothic stone canopy is painted in grisaille, identical to that on the other wing. The designs were transferred onto each panel by pouncing. The unpainted edges at the tops and sides are original but at the lower edges the paint and ground have been scraped away. This took place in 1822/3 when our fragments were cut off the Berlin panels by a French dealer who thought their unusual shape would have been ’disagreeable' in a picture gallery.
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The Soul of Saint Bertin carried up to God
Fragments of Shutters from the St Bertin Altarpiece
These two paintings – The Soul of Saint Bertin carried up to God and A Choir of Angels – were once the upper parts of the wings of an elaborate altarpiece that was made for the high altar of the abbey church of St Bertin at Saint-Omer in northern France. It was commissioned by Guillaume Fillastre, Abbot of St Bertin, and was consecrated in 1459.
The wings are thought to have been painted at Valenciennes, where Simon Marmion was almost certainly the leading painter; he had moved there from Amiens between 1454 and 1458. The main parts of the wings are now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. On the inside these show Fillastre himself with scenes from the life of Saint Bertin. The central section is known only from written descriptions, but was in the shape of an inverted ‘T’ and was made of gold, gilded silver and copper, rock crystal, diamonds and other precious stones.
These two paintings – The Soul of Saint Bertin carried up to God and A Choir of Angels – were once the upper parts of the wings of an elaborate altarpiece that was made for the high altar of the abbey church of St Bertin at Saint-Omer in northern France. It was commissioned by Guillaume Fillastre, Abbot of St Bertin, and was consecrated in 1459.
The wings are thought to have been painted at Valenciennes, where Simon Marmion was almost certainly the leading painter; he had moved there from Amiens between 1454 and 1458. Marmion was also well known as an illuminator – according to the sixteenth-century historian Jean lemaire de Belges he was the ‘prince of illuminators’. The style of the wing panels is very close to that of some of the most beautiful manuscripts of the 1450s, made for Guillaume Fillastre and presented by him to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. Many of the manuscripts in this stylistic group can be shown to have been made in or near Valenciennes. There is no proof that Simon Marmion painted the wings of the St Bertin altarpiece or the related manuscripts, but there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence in favour of this theory.
The main parts of the wings are now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. On the inside these show Fillastre himself with scenes from the life of Saint Bertin. On the outside are biblical kings, prophets and evangelists, painted to look like stone statues, on either side of an image of the Annunciation. The central section is known only from written descriptions, but was in the shape of an inverted ‘T’ and was made of gold, gilded silver and copper, rock crystal, diamonds and other precious stones. It had three-dimensional figures of Fillastre and Saint Bertin, and scenes from the life of Christ. All the statuettes were gilded but with faces and hands painted in flesh colours. At the top was a gilded Tree of Life surrounded by angels and topped with a pelican feeding her young (a symbol for the Passion). From the Tree of Life hung a golden dove, in which the Host – the consecrated bread of the Eucharist – was kept.
Fillastre was an important man. A favourite of Philip the Good and Charles the Bold, he was successively bishop of Verdun, Toul and Tournai. In 1447 he became abbot of the important Benedictine Abbey of St Bertin and was an active patron of the arts. Many of the records of the abbey have been lost, but surviving accounts list four payments for it. The total cost was over 1895 livres Artois or pounds, an enormous sum, especially as the precious metals and jewels came from the abbey treasury.
The altarpiece and its shutters remained on the high altar until 1783 when it was moved to another part of the church. They were still there in 1791 but the central section was destroyed soon after and the wings passed into the hands of a local baker, and from him to a local art-lover, perhaps the painter Louis Francia. The fragments here were separated from the main portions by a nineteenth-century dealer and bought by the National Gallery as part of the Beaucousin Collection in 1860.


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