Details

Object type

tapestry; altar frontal; antependium

Title

Altar Frontal with Saints Mary Magdalene, Agnes and Elizabeth of Hungary

Place Associated

Southern Netherlands, Spanish Netherlands, Limburg, Sint-Truiden (probably) (place of manufacture)

Date

circa 1525-1550

Materials

wool (warps), wool (wefts), silk (wefts), (wefts), 6 warp threads per cm, 2 ply S Z

Dimensions

overall: 980 mm x 1970 mm

Description

Tapestry, altar frontal or antependium, woven with wool, linen and silk wefts and wool warps depicting Saints Mary Magdalene, Agnes and Elizabeth of Hungary. Left, St Mary Magdalene in a headdress and golden breastplate stood holding a jar of ointment, centre St Agnes holds a martyr’s palm and open book with a lamb by her feet and St Elizabeth holds out a piece of bread whilst holding a book. Each saint on a grassy mount with flowers. Background imitating blue damask.

Elizabeth Cleland states that: 'The Altar Frontal with Saints Mary Magdalene, Agnes and Elizabeth of Hungary is remarkably similar in dimensions and composition to the Altar Frontal with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Barbara Flanking the Virgin of the Apocalypse in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Both hangings were still recorded as being in the church of a beguinage, which housed a lay sisterhood, in the town of Sint-Truiden (east of Brussels) in 1905. The Belgian historian, Leon Smets, has shown that the hangings correspond to the dimensions of the two altars which flanked the entrance to the choir, each approximately 102 by 196 cm. One of the altars was dedicated to St Agnes, the patroness of the beguinage and its church, and the other to the Virgin Mary. Since these are the two central figures of the matching tapestries in the Burrell Collection and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it seems almost certain that the altar frontals were made especially to hang at these altars.' (Cleland, E. and Karafel, L., (2017). Glasgow Museums: Tapestries from The Burrell Collection, 555-556).

Provenance: St Agnes Beguinage of Sint-Truiden by 1905; Seidlitz and van Baarn, New York, 1926; Le Comte de Saluber, 1936; Frank Partridge, London; Mrs James Manchester, Lloyds Neck, Huntingdon, Long Island, USA; her sale, Catalogue of fine continental porcelain, important English clocks, tapestries ... (various properties including) Mrs James Manchester, Sotheby’s, London, 20 May 1955, lot 102, (illus. pl.8); from where purchased through Frank Partridge by Sir William Burrell for £735.

Credit Line/Donor

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

Collection

Burrell Collection: European Tapestries

ID Number

46.125

Location

In storage