Left Wing of a Triptych: Twelve Saints

On a black ground strewn with lines of gilt dots and interspersed with rosette-like ornaments, are twelve medallions arranged vertically in five pairs and with single medallions at top and at bottom. These are painted with half-length figures of saints, confronting each other in the pairs.

The figures from top to bottom: 1) St. John the Evangelist, seated with his eagle, and holding a scroll inscribed: AVE MARIA. 2) St. John the Baptist, standing (as are the following nine figures) pointing to the lamb lying on the closed book which he holds in his left hand. 3) St. Peter, pointing to the key he holds in his left hand. 4) St. Paul, making a gesture of speech with his left hand and holding a sword in his right hand. 5) St. Andrew, holding an open book and a saltire cross. 6) St. James the Greater, holding a pilgrim's staff and wearing on his cap the badge of the pilgrims to Santiago of Compostela. He reads an open book. 7) St. Stephen, reading a book and holding a palm-leaf in his left hand. On his head is a bleeding wound and one the stones of his martyrdom. 8) St. Sebastian, his hands bound behind him, his nude body wounded by arrows. 9) St. Cosmas, in the dress of a doctor of the period, holding a flask in his right hand. 10) St. Damien, dressed like St. Cosmas and bearing a scalpel in his right hand. 11) St. Denis, decapitated and frontal, but the mitred head he holds in his hands is turned towards the left in keeping with the general compositional scheme. 12) The Evangelist St. Luke, seated with a book on his lap, behind him is his emblem, the ox.

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.

Lucien Cottreau Collection [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Lucien Cottreau Collection Sale, Paris, April 28, 1910, no. 47; J. Pierpont Morgan Collection, [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Arnold Seligmann, Rey and Co., New York [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, [date of acquisition unknown] by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.