Anonymous Netherlandish artist
CHRIST BLEEDING INTO A CHALICE, CHRIST SEATED ON THE COLD STONE [Netherlands, last quarter 15th century]
Reflecting the popularity of Christ as the Man of Sorrows in the Netherlands in the 15th century, these two distinctive and appealing scenes from a miniature prayerbook strikingly evoke the intensity of personal meditation encouraged by the popular movement of the devotio moderna.

The long, angular form of Christ with wounds vividly depicted is typical of popular imagery in the Netherlands. Shown bleeding into a chalice surrounded by the instruments of the Passion, He is as He appeared in the vision seen by Pope St Gregory during mass, which testified to the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into His Body and Blood. The Latin text is the latter part of the expanded version of the seven prayers attributed to the Pope that was often accompanied by a miniature of his miraculous Mass. Christ was more usually shown at half-length, in accordance with the icon said to record His appearance in the vision, whereas here, the full-length presentation allows for a similar treatment to that of the following miniature of Christ seated on the Cold Stone as He waits to be nailed to the Cross. The minutely detailed Instruments of the Passion, often included in the Mass of St Gregory, unusually continue behind Christ on the Cold Stone, so that the illuminator creates a visually congruous sequence of images to accompany the sequence of prayers. In style and composition, the two miniatures are reminiscent of the prints that circulated both independently and as illustrations, particularly to some Passion-centred manuscripts from Germany and the Low Countries associated with the devotio moderna. Their Latin text might suggest an origin in the southern Netherlands.

Provenance:
•Private collection, London.

88 x 65mm, miniatures: 32 x 40mm. These adjacent leaves may come from a prayerbook or Book of Hours; the text is from an expanded version of the Seven Prayers of St Gregory on the Passion ‘O domine Jhesu Christe adoro te in cruce pendentem’: opening beneath Christ bleeding into a Chalice ‘te d[esce]ndente[m] ad i[n]feros’ (from prayer V ), continuing with VI, two additional prayers and ending with VII and a final concluding prayer on the verso of Christ on the Cold Stone). Mounted.

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