The Three Marys, 1444

  • German

Pot metal; white glass with silver stain and olive-green enamel

  • Overall: 58 × 29 × 1 5/8 inches (147.3 × 73.7 × 4.1 cm)

Founders Society Purchase, Anne E. Shipman Stevens Bequest Fund

40.52

On View

  • European: Medieval and Renaissance, Level 2, West

Department

European Sculpture and Dec Arts

This panel, with its expressive, linear style, is one of many to survive from the important stained glass cycle of the Carmelite church at Boppard am Rhein. Regrettably, none of this remarkable glass remains in the church today. Mary, the mother of Christ, Mary Magdalen (on the left), and Mary of Cleophas (on the right) stand as witnesses to the Crucifixion. The bust of the prophet Jeremiah appears in the trefoil above the three mourning figures holding a banderole with the inscription jermia pp frotea ano dn xliiii ("The prophet Jeremiah, in the year of our Lord (14]44"). A document in the Trier city archives confirms that the date 1444 recorded in this panel is the date of the consecration of the north section of the church. This panel was originally part of a large program depicting the Tree of Jesse, or the ancestry of Christ.

Inscribed: jermia p[ro]pfrote[]a an[n]o d[omi]n[i] xliiii

until 1818, Carmelite Church (Boppard-am-Rhein, Germany)

1818-1871, Count Hermann Pückler (Muskau)

by descent to Count Puckler-Branitz (Muskau)

Baron Frédéric Spitzer (Paris, France)

1893, his sale (Paris, France) lot 3359

(A. Huber, Zurich, Switzerland)

(J. Böhler, Lucerne, Switzerland)

(Arnold Seligmann, Rey & Co., Inc., Paris, France and New York, New York)

Catalogue des objets d'art et de haute curiosité composant l'importante et précieuse collection Spitzer. Sales cat., 33 rue de Villejust. Paris, April 17-June16, 1893, supplement "Vitraux," no. 3359. Fischer, J. "Drei süddeutsche Glasgemälde aus der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts." Zeitschrift für alte und neue Glasmalerei (1913): (ill.) p. 49. Frankl, P. "Das Passionfenster im Berner Münster und der Glasmaler Hans Acker von Ulm." Anzeiger für schweizerische Altertumskünde NF 40 (1938): p. 242. von Wentzel, H. "Unbekannte mittelalterliche Glasmalereien der Burrell Collection zu Glasgow (3. Teil)." Pantheon 19, no. 5 (September-October 1961): p. 66, no. 224. Stained and Painted Glass. Exh. cat., Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum. Glasgow, p. 58, p. 67. Hayward, J. "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): p. 83, fig. 9 (ill.); p. 85. Caviness, M., et al. Stained Glass before 1700 in American Collections: Midwestern and Western States (Corpus Vitrearum Checklist III). Studies in the History of Art 28. Washington, DC, 1989, p. 157 (ill.). Lymant, B., ed. Die Glasmalerien des Schnütgen-Museums, Bestandskatalog. Cologne, 1982, p. 106. Caviness, M. "Learning from Forest Lawn." Speculum 69, no. 4 (1994): pp. 986-991; p. 988, fig. 8 (ill.). Raguin, V.C. "Three German Saints and a Taste for German Expressionism: Valentiner at the Detroit Institute of Arts." Gesta 37, no. 2 (1998): p. 244. Raguin, V. and H. Zakin. Stained Glass Before 1700 in the collections of the Midwest States (Corpus Vitrearum United States of America 7), vol. I, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan. London, 2001, no. DIA 4, pp. 168-175 (ill.).

German, The Three Marys, 1444, pot metal; white glass with silver stain and olive-green enamel. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Anne E. Shipman Stevens Bequest Fund, 40.52.