Amya Petitioning Faustus for the Custody of Saint Mamas

This recently discovered sheet is a rare work by Jean Cousin the Elder, one of the most central and appealing artists of the French Renaissance. He was active as a designer of tapestry, stained glass, and book illustration, as well as ephemeral festival decorations for the French court. Nonetheless, Cousin’s oeuvre has proven difficult to reconstruct as the majority of his designs were ultimately executed by skilled artisans in other media.

This is one of a small number of unassailably autograph sheets by his hand. It is connected to a set of eight tapestries illustrating the life of St. Mamas—of which three survive today-- commissioned in 1543 for the cathedral in Langres.

Saint Mamas was an obscure child martyr who lived in Capadoccia in the second century. He was born in prison to a father who died just before his birth and a mother who died just after. A local widow, Amya, was instructed by divine vision to petition the governor for permission to adopt the child and give his parents a Christian burial. The lost tapestry for which this is a study would presumably have been the first in the series.

Perrin Stein, May 2014