THE ANGEL ANNOUNCING TO MARY HER APPROACHING DEATH has been rarely treated. In general, Mary is seated or standing, and the angel kneels before her, bearing the starry palm brought from Paradise. In the frescoes at Orvieto, and in the bas-relief of Orcagna, on the beautiful shrine in Or San Michele, at Florence, the angel […]

THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN is styled in Byzantine and old Italian Art the Sleep of the Virgin, Il Sonno della Madonna; for it was an old superstition, subsequently rejected as heretical, that she did not really die after the manner of common mortals, only fell asleep till her resurrection. Therefore, perhaps, it is, that […]

THE APOSTLES CARRY THE BODY OF THE VIRGIN TO THE TOMB. This is a very uncommon subject. There is a most beautiful example by Taddeo Bartolo (Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) full of profound religious feeling. There is a small engraving by Bonasone, in a series of the Life of the Virgin, apparently after Parmigiano, in which […]

THE ENTOMBMENT. In the early pictures there is little distinction between this subject and the death of the Virgin. If the figure of Christ stand over the recumbent form, holding in his arms the emancipated soul, then it is the Transito — the death or sleep; but when a sarcophagus is in the centre of […]

THE ASSUMPTION. The old painters distinguished between the Assumption of the soul and the Assumption of the body of the Virgin. In the first instance, at the moment the soul is separated from her body, Christ receives it into his keeping, standing in person either beside her death-bed or above it. But in the Assumption […]

As if to render the circle of maternal duties, and thereby the maternal example, more complete, there are prints of Mary leading her Son to school. I have seen one in which he carries his horn-book in his hand. Such representations, though popular, were condemned by the highest church authorities as nothing less than heretical. […]

Ital. La Disputa nel Tempio. Fr. Jésus au milieu des Docteurs. The subject which we call the dispute in the Temple, or ” Christ among the Doctors,” is a scene of great importance in the life of the Redeemer. (Luke ii. 41-52.) His appearance in the midst of the doctors, at twelve years old, when […]

THERE are representations of the Virgin, and among them some of the earliest in existence, which place her before us as an object of religious veneration, but in which the predominant idea is not that of her maternity. No doubt it was as the mother of the Saviour Christ that she was originally venerated ; […]

Ital. La Morte di San Giuseppe. Fr. La Mort de St. Joseph. Ger. Josef’s Tod. Between the journey to Jerusalem and the public appearance of Jesus, chronologers place the death of Joseph, but the exact date is not ascertained; some place it in the eighteenth year of the life of our Saviour, and others in […]

Ital. La Nozze di Cana. Fr. Les Noces de Cana. Ger. Die Hochzeit zu Cana. After his temptation and baptism, the first manifestation of the divine mission and miraculous power of Jesus was at the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee ; and those who had devoted themselves to the especial glorification of the Virgin-mother […]