A Bishop Saint

Description

Bartolomé Bermejo likely learned his meticulous oil-painting technique by studying Netherlandish works imported into his native Spain. Colored pigments become translucent when mixed with oil, necessitating many thin layers to be built up that result in rich colors, like the green jacquard lining this saint’s vestments, and radiant light effects, as seen in his jewel-encrusted miter. This captivating realism went hand in hand with a strategy in Netherlandish art called disguised symbolism, which imbued everyday objects with sacred meaning. Here, for example, the three-horned snail that appears as a decorative detail carved into the arm of the wooden seat is also a symbol of Christ’s Resurrection.

Provenance

Private collection, Spain, before 1931 [letter from Abris Silberman to Daniel Catton Rich, March 31, 1947, Art Institute Archives]; E. and A. Silberman Galleries, Vienna, as Saint Augustine by Simon Marmion, by January 1931 [note by Max Friedländer on the reverse of a photograph in the Friedländer Archive, Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague]. New York art market, 1934 [according to Angulo 1935, p. 302; this was probably Silberman’s New York gallery]. Dr. Oscar Bondy (died 1944), Vienna and New York ; his widow, Elisabeth Soinig Bondy, until 1947 [the painting was not among the objects sealed in Bondy’s Vienna apartment in 1938; for this list see Sophie Lillie, Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens, Vienna, 2003, pp. 218-44; the letter from Silberman to Rich cited above indicates that the dealer had recently acquired the painting from Mrs. Bondy]; sold by E. and A. Silberman, New York, to the Art Institute, 1947 [purchased with deaccession funds].

A Bishop Saint

Bartolomé Bermejo

c. 1480

Accession Number

60514

Medium

Oil on panel

Dimensions

49 × 27.7 cm (19 5/16 × 10 15/16 in.); Framed: 54.7 × 32.4 × 5.1 cm (21 1/2 × 12 3/4 × 2 in.)

Classification

oil on panel

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection