The three lancets on the left were originally placed over the three on the right in the north nave of the former Carmelite church at Boppard-am-Rhein near Koblenz. The slender, elongated figures enveloped in soft, trailing drapery and placed under soaring canopies suggest that the glass painter was well versed in the prevailing style of the Lower Rhineland, particularly that of Cologne. The marked preference for grisaille (shades of gray), both in drapery and flesh tones, further indicates a Cologne connection. At the left Saint Servatius, bishop of Tongres, holds a key presented to him by the pope in recognition of his fight against heresy, symbolized by the dragon he tramples. The antiheretical reference is echoed below by Saint Michael, who weighs souls and tramples evil. The Virgin appears in a robe adorned with representations of corn or wheat, an iconographic type stemming from litanies of the Virgin likening her to a field of grain nourishing humankind with the bread of life. Beneath her are the arms of the bishop of Liège, whose diocese may have donated the window. Below Saint Catherine are the arms of the coopers' guild of which she was patron saint. Saint Dorothy is shown accompanied by the Christ Child.
#71. The Virgin Mary and Five Standing Saints above Predella Panels
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Title:The Virgin Mary and Five Standing Saints above Predella Panels
Date:1440–46
Geography:Made in Rhine Valley
Culture:German
Medium:Pot-metal glass, white glass, vitreous paint, silver stain
Dimensions:Each window 12 ft. 4 1/2 in. x 28 1/4 in. (337.2 x 71.8 cm)
Classification:Glass-Stained
Credit Line:The Cloisters Collection, 1937
Accession Number:37.52.1–.6
From the north nave of the former Carmelite church at Boppard-am-Rhein in Rheinland-Pflaz (Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis), near Koblenz, Germany; Count Hermann Pückler, Muskau (from 1818) ; [ Frédéric Spitzer Austrian, Paris (from at least 1875-1893)] ; his posthumous sale, Chevallier & Mannheim, Paris (April 17–June 16, 1893, nos. 1953-55, 59-61) ; [ Frederick Davis & Son, London (from 1893)] ; [ Jacques Seligmann, Paris and New York (from at least 1933-1937)]
La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité, Moyen-Age, Renaissance. Vol. II. Mâcon: Imprimerie Protat Frères, 1890–1891. Vitraux 1–3, 6–8, pp. 73–75.
Spitzer, Frédéric, ed. La Collection Spitzer: Antiquité -- Moyen-Age -- Renaissance. Vol. 3. Paris: Maison Quantin, 1890–1893. Vitraux 1–3, 7–9, pp. 123–25.
Catalogue des objets d'art et de haute curiosité: antiques, du moyen-âge & de la renaissance, composant l'importante et précieuse Collection Spitzer. Vol. 2. Paris: Chevallier and Mannheim, April 17–June 16, 1893. no. 1953–55, 1559–61, pp. 65–66.
Rorimer, James J. "New Acquisitions for the Cloisters." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 33, no.5, part 2 (May 1938). pp. 12–15.
Hayward, Jane. "Stained-Glass Windows from the Carmelite Church at Boppard-am-Rhein: A Reconstruction of the Glazing Program of the North Nave." Metropolitan Museum Journal 2 (1969). pp. 75–114, fig. 1, 2, 23, 36, 38.
Rorimer, James J. Medieval Monuments at The Cloisters: As They Were and As They Are, edited by Katherine Serrell Rorimer. Revised ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1972. pp. 73–75, fig. 94–95.
Hayward, Jane. Glass in the Collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1982). p. 15.
Howard, Kathleen, ed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983. no. 29, p. 372.
Caviness, Madeline H., ed. Stained Glass Before 1700 in American Collections: New England and New York (Corpus Vitrearum Checklist I). Studies in the History of Art, Vol. 15. Washington, D.C.: National Art Gallery, 1985. pp. 118–19.
Shepard, Mary B. Europe in the Middle Ages, edited by Charles T. Little, and Timothy B. Husband. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. pp. 140–42, pl. 130.
Burn, Barbara, ed. Masterpieces of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. pp. 70–71.
Caviness, Madeline H. "Learning from Forest Lawn." Speculum 69, no. 4 (October 1994). pp. 973, 977.
Howard, Kathleen, ed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. 2nd ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994. no. 29, p. 406.
Nikitsch, Eberhard J. Die Inschriften des Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreises I (Boppard, Oberwesel, St. Goar). Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2004. pp. 81–84.
Barnet, Peter, and Nancy Y. Wu. The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005. no. 91, pp. 128–29, 197.
Datz, Gepa. "Partenheim versus Boppard. Geschichte und Rekonstruktion zweier spätgotischer Verglasungen am Mittelrhein.." PhD diss., Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 2006. pp. 98–103, 124–36, 145–46, 154–62, pl. 60, 64.
Datz, Gepa. "Die Karmeliterfenster von Boppard: ein quellenkritischer Beitrag zur Kontroverse ihrer Rekonstruktion." In Magister operis: Beiträge zur mittelalterlichen Architektur Europas: Festgabe für Dethard von Winterfeld zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by Gabriel Dette, Klaus Weber, and Laura Heeg. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2008. discussed throughout.
Barnet, Peter, and Nancy Y. Wu. The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture. 75th Anniversary ed. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. pp. 132–35.
Husband, Timothy B. "Creating the Cloisters." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 70, no. 4 (Spring 2013). p. 43, fig. 89.
Bolton, Andrew, ed. Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. Vol. 2. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018. p. 282.
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