Details

Object type

stained glass panel

Title

Adoration of the Magi

Place Associated

Germany, Lower Rhine Region, Cologne (place of manufacture); England, Norfolk, Costessey Hall (place of use)

Date

About 1500

Materials

clear glass, coloured glass, stained glass, lead

Dimensions

original panel: 780 mm x 581 mm x 10 mm; quarries: 780 mm x 749 mm x 10 mm

Description

Very little is known about the history of this panel before being acquired by William Burrell, other than that it, like several other pieces in his collection, had once been in the home of the Barons Stafford at Costessey Hall.

Showing the arrival of the three Magi at the stable, here presented as a thatched structure inserted into a ruinous building, the men have come to adore the Christ Child. He is posed atop Mary’s knee at the centre of the strongly pyramidal scene. The truncated yellow curve of glass in the upper left, atop the thatched roof is probably all that now remains of the Star of Bethlehem.

The standing youthful figure on the left, richly dressed in a brocaded fur-lined jerkin and pointed and curling orientalising hat, offers a gold cup full of rounded pellets probably representing gold coins, with his left hand. The pointed cover remains in his right. The kneeling bearded figure on the left is showing Christ the interior of a handled covered cup resembling a mazer and being blessed in return. A fragment of his discarded headgear can just be glimpsed at the bottom extreme of the panel. The richly dressed elderly kneeling figure on the left is drawing the arm of the Christ Child towards him, and pressing his lips to his hand. The Three Kings with their three different beard lengths represent the Three Ages of Man and follow conventions established in Netherlandish painting of the 15th century: though they wear contemporary costume, the first wears red, headgear has been removed and placed it at the feet of Christ. So detailed is the painting of the physiognomy of the red-cloaked king, that we may be looking at a donor portrait.

The less sumptuously dressed figure in the background holding an intricately worked covered cup is probably St Joseph. This head, which is inserted back to front and is presumably as a restoration from another window, is clean shaven, but the lower reaches of a beard can still be identified tickling the neckline of his garment.

To date very little progress has been made on the attribution: Rhineland, 15th century. An important comparison piece for the grisaille faces is likely to be the fragmentary St James in the Schnütgen-Museum, Cologne, which is also set against a green textile decorated with stylised fronds very similar to those which add depth to the sky above the stable. This has been dated 1476/1500 and given to the Cologne, or Lower Rhine Region (Glasmalerei des Schnütgen-Museums, Köln 1982; S. 133-134, Kat.Nr. 75). Further similarities may be seen in the shaping of the eyes in the fragments of a window of the same theme, also in the Schnütgen-Museum, believed to have been made in Cologne around 1500-1510 (Glasmalerei des Schnütgen-Museums, Köln 1982; S. 172-173, Kat.Nr. 104).

A possible graphic source for the composition has yet to be found. The very large nimbuses of Christ Child and Mary recall an engraving by the Master of the Nuremberg Passion, while the crowded compact nature of the scene and the hand-kiss bring the rendering of the scene in the 1499 Chronicle of the Holy Town of Cologne to mind. This gesture can be found in other media linked with the city, such as an altarpiece dated to the later 15th century in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges. In several such examples the king who bends to kiss the Christ Child has laid his gift on the floor before him and St Joseph is commonly shown leaning on his staff. In Burrell’s window Joseph holds the king’s gift, something also seen in Albrecht Dürer’s Anbetung der Könige (1503, printed in Das Marienleben, lat.1511).

Credit Line/Donor

Gifted by Sir William and Lady Burrell to the City of Glasgow, 1944

Collection

Burrell Collection: Stained Glass

ID Number

45.427

Location

Burrell Collection The Burrells