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A bearded man kneels before a bishop in front of a crowd gathered outside a church in this vertical painting. The people all have pale skin. The bishop is to our left, though he stands angled to our right on the church steps. His face is lined and his eyebrows furrowed as he looks into the distance to our right. He holds up one hand with the thumb and first two fingers extended. His tall, pointed white mitre hat is widely edged with gold and jewels. A saucer-sized gold medallion fastens the two sides of his long, gold brocade robe. Under that, he wears a brick-red garment over a white shirt visible at his neck and wrists. Four clean-shaven clergymen stand behind him. The one closest to us wears white and his blond hair is cut into a ring around his head. He holds a hooked staff, a crozier, and his body blocks the others. The kneeling man, to our right, presses his hands together in prayer as he looks up at the bishop. The kneeling man wears an off-white cloth tied around his head and plum-purple, gold, and pine-green robes. A black, oval object, perhaps a cap, lies on the church step next to his knee. About fifteen men, women, and children line up beyond the kneeling man, forming a loose backward C-curve through the center of the scene. They are dressed in rose-pink, lemon or mustard-yellow, avocado-green, blue, or orange garments. At the back of the queue and seen in the near distance between the kneeling man and bishop, two men reach out to support a third man lying on the ground. The prone man looks with wild eyes and a gaping mouth at a green demon hovering overhead. The group occupies a plaza flanked by the beige stone church on the left and a large tan building with arched windows on the right. Statues and carvings fill the arched portals of the church beyond the bishop. The space is enclosed with more buildings set farther back from the two closer structures. A few wispy clouds float against the azure-blue sky overhead.

Master of Saint Giles and Assistant

Episodes from the Life of a Bishop Saint, c. 1500

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 41-A

Medium

oil on panel

Dimensions

painted surface: 61.5 x 47 cm (24 3/16 x 18 1/2 in.)
overall (panel): 63.2 x 47.5 cm (24 7/8 x 18 11/16 in.)

framed: 76.2 x 62.5 x 5.7 cm (30 x 24 5/8 x 2 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1952.2.14

Artists / Makers

Master of Saint Giles (painter) Franco-Flemish, active c. 1500

Anonymous Artist (painter)

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

upper right under paint layer on wall of Hotel-Dieu: [L?]oste..

Provenance

Chevalier Alexandre de Lestang-Parade, Aix-en-Provence, by 1823.[1] Count Melchior de Lestang-Parade, Aix-en-Provence; (sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 19-20 May 1882, nos. 105, 106, as anonymous fifteenth century). Baron Etienne Martin de Beurnonville [d. 1881], Paris; (sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 21-22 May 1883, nos. 43, 44, as Burgundian School, fifteenth century). M. Watel, Paris, 1883.[2] Paris art market, by 1937.[3] (Wildenstein and Co., Paris and New York), by 1938; purchased 1946 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1952 by exchange to NGA.

[1] [Jean-Baptiste-François Porte], Aix ancien et moderne, ou Description des Édifices sacres et profanes, Établissements, Monumens [sic] antiques, du moyen âge et modernes, Bibliotèques, Cabinets, Promenades d'Aix, etc., etc..... (Aix-en-Provence, 1823), 147.

[2] According to Alfred de Champeaux, "Deux vues de la Cité de Paris au XVe siècle," La Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosité, no. 23 (1883), 187.

[3] Max J. Friedländer, "Le Maître de Saint-Gilles," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6e per. 17 (1937), 223.

[4] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/716.

Associated Names

Art market, Paris
Beurnonville, Etienne Martin de, Baron
Drouot, Hôtel
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Lestang-Parade, Alexandre de, Chevalier
Lestang-Parade, Melchoir de, Count
Watel, M.
Wildenstein & Co., Inc.

Exhibition History

2010: France 1500: Entre Moyen Age et Renaissance, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Art Institute of Chicago, 2010-2011, no. 178 (Paris) and no. 33 (Chicago), repro.

Technical Summary

The panel has two vertical joins approximately 19 and 30 cm from the left margin. It was thinned and cradled sometime before 1937. There are no traces of the grisaille of Saint Giles formerly on the back of the panel.[1] The painting is in general in excellent condition. A few localized losses have been inpainted, notably at the right margin and in the sky between the two gables of the HÃ´tel-Dieu. Yet, in general there is little abrasion and the brushstrokes appear crisp and precise.

Examination with infrared reflectography showed underdrawing in both the architecture and figures. In the area of the portal, the underdrawn design was quite closely followed by the paint layers, though some perspective lines were also drawn at the level of the buttress figures. The four foreground figures facing the bishop were especially fully underdrawn. In the figures in the middle distance, the underdrawn line was often more readily visible with the naked eye than with infrared reflectography.

[1] Friedländer 1937, 223, noted that the panels had been recently cradled. The thinness of the panel, .5 cm, makes it most probable that the grisaille was planed away rather than split. The intact panels in London are .7-8 cm thick.

Bibliography

1823: [Porte, Jean-Baptiste-François]. Aix ancien et moderne, ou Description des Édifices sacrés et profanes, Établissemens, Monumens antiques, du moyen âge et modernes,... Aix-en-Provence, 1823: 147.

1841: Gaszynski, C. In Mémorial d'Aix (13 June 1841): 2.

1883: Champeaux, Alfred de. "Deux vues de la Cité de Paris au XVe siècle." La Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosité no. 23 (1883): 186-187.

1905: Reinach, Salomon. Répertoire de peintures du moyen âge et de la Renaissance (1280-1580). 6 vols. Paris, 1905-1923: 2(1907):665, no. 2, repro.

1907: "Meister des hl. Agidius." In Thieme-Becker. 37 vols. Leipzig,1907-1950: 37(1950):6-7.

1912: Friedländer, Max J. "Der Meister des hl. Ägidius." Amtliche Berichte aus den königl. Kunstsammlungen 34 (1912/1913): 187-188.

1921: Conway, Martin. The Van Eycks and their Followers. London, 1921: 190.

1931: Lemoisne, Paul André. Die gotische Malerei Frankreichs vierzehntes und fünfzehntes Jahrhundert. Leipzig, 1931: 113.

1932: Held, Julius S. "Zwei Ansichten von Paris beim Meister des heiligen Ägidius." Jahrbuch der königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen (Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen) 53 (1932): 3-10, 12, 14, fig. 1.

1934: Jong, Johannes Assuerus Bernardus Maria de. Architektuur bij de Nederlandsche Schilders vóór de Hervorming. Amsterdam, 1934: 53-54, fig. 47.

1937: Friedländer, Max J. "Le Maître de Saint-Gilles." Gazette des Beaux Arts 17 (1937): 223-225, 230, figs. 6, 9.

1938: Dimier, Louis. "Les primitifs français." Gzette des Beaux-Arts 20 (1938): 234-235.

1938: Sterling, Charles. La peinture française: les primitifs. Paris, 1938: 135, fig. 171.

1939: National Gallery, London. Supplement to the 1929 Catalogue Including Accessions to the End of 1937. London, 1939: 27.

1939: Réau, Louis. La peinture française du XIVe au XVIe siècle. Paris, 1939: 14, figs. 11, 12.

1942: Sterling, Charles. Les peintres du Moyen Âge: la peinture française. Paris, 1942: 51, 64, pl. 141.

1945: Davies, Martin. National Gallery Catalogues. Early Netherlandish School. London, 1945: 71-72 (2d ed. 1955: 82-83; 3d ed. 1968, 108-109).

1946: Davies, Martin. Paintings and Drawings on the Backs of National Gallery Pictures. London, 1946: xi.

1949: Hébert, Michèle. "Les monuments parisiens dans l'oeuvre du Maître de Saint Gilles." Fédération des sociétés historiques et archéologiques de Paris et de l'Ile-de-France. Mémoires 1 (1949): 213-214, 224-231, pl. 10.

1949: Ring, Grete. A Century of French Painting 1400-1500. London, 1949: 33, 230, no. 240b, repro. 25.

1951: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 186-188, no. 82, repro., as The Conversion of an Aryan by St. Remy by Master of St. Gilles.

1954: Tietze, Hans. Treasures of the Great National Galleries. New York, 1954: 117, 123-124.

1955: Réau, Louis. Iconographie de l'art chrétien. 3 vols. Paris, 1955-1959: 3, part 2(1959):1146.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 333, repro., as The Conversion of an Aryan by Saint Rémy by Master of Saint Gilles.

1959: Sauerländer, Willibald. "Die kunstgeschichtliche Stellung der Westportale von Notre-Dame in Paris." Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 17 (1959): 22.

1960: The National Gallery of Art and Its Collections. Foreword by Perry B. Cott and notes by Otto Stelzer. National Gallery of Art, Washington (undated, 1960s): 4.

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: 66-67, 202, 218, fig. 59.

1963: Châtelet, Albert, and Jacques Thuillier. French Painting from Fouquet to Poussin. Geneva, 1963: 92-93.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 305, repro., as The Conversion of an Arian by St. Rémy

1965: Hinkle, William M. "The Iconography of the Four Panels by the Master of Saint Giles." Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 28 (1965): 110, 130, 133, pls. 19, 21e-f.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 87, as The Conversion of an Arian by Saint Rémy by Master of Saint Gilles.

1966: Hinkle, William M. "The King and the Pope on the Virgin Portal of Notre-Dame." The Art Bulletin 48 (1966): 6, 7, fig. 6.

1966: Laclotte, Michel. Primitifs français. Paris, 1966: 45.

1967: Greenhill, Eleanor S. "The Provenance of a Gothic Head." The Art Bulletin 49, no. 2 (June 1967): 103,-104, 106, fig. 15.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 76, repro., as The Conversion of an Arian by Saint Rémy, by Master of Saint Gilles.

1973: National Gallery, London. Illustrated General Catalogue. London, 1973: 444.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue (National Gallery of Art). Washington, 1975: 224-225, repro., as The Conversion of an Arian by Saint Rémy. by Master of Saint Gilles.

1977: Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 240-241, fig. 230, text fig. 53.

1978: Erlande-Brandenburg, Alain, and Dieter Kimpel. "La statuaire de Notre-Dame avant les destructions révolutionnaires." Bulletin Monumental 136 (1978): 217, 222, 230, 264, fig. 4.

1983: Hellerstedt, Kahren Jones. "The Blind Man and His Guide in Netherlandish Painting." Simiolus 13 (1983): 171, fig. 11.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 142, no. 142, color repro., as by Master of St. Giles.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 258, repro.

1986: Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1986: 163-167, repro. 165.

2011: Mullally, Evelyn. Guide de Paris au Moyen Age. Paris, 2011: 112-113, color repro.