A Bishop Saint with a Donor (Saint Louis of Toulouse?)
Unknown Artist
early 1400s
Medium
tempera with raised and gilded gesso on wood
Dimensions
framed: 191.4 × 127.3 × 14 cm · painted surface: 171.5 × 107 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Medieval Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of the Friends of The Cleveland Museum of Art
Accession Number
1927.197
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The style of this painting suggests that it comes from Catalonia in northeastern Spain, though the identity of its artist remains unknown. The painting represents a youthful bishop-saint identifiable by a bishop’s symbols of authority, his miter and crozier. He wears rich vestments. Below, the figure in black represents the donor of the painting—likely a wealthy layperson rather than a cleric. The identity of the saintly bishop is speculated to be Saint Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, on the basis of...