Saint Barbara
Sculptures
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Saint Barbara
| Artist | |
|---|---|
| Culture | French |
| Date | early 16th century |
| Object type | sculpture |
| Medium, technique | limestone |
| Dimensions | 88 x 33 x 21 cm |
| Inventory number | 52.816 |
| Collection | Sculptures |
| On view | Museum of Fine Arts, First Floor, European Art 1250-1600, Cabinet 21 |
According to the legend, Saint Barbara, who lived in the third century, was locked up in a tower by her own father, a heathen. Barbara, however, secretly converted to the Christian faith and later suffered a martyr’s death. The statue of the saint, who is depicted holding her attributes (namely a tower and a palm branch symbolising her martyrdom), was probably been made in the early sixteenth century and can be linked with the art of Michel Colombe, a sculptor working on the border between late Gothic and early Renaissance. The work can be placed among the statues made in the Bourbonnais region under the influence of Colombe. It has the typical features of the so-called Bourbonnais facial type: the curly hair parted in the middle, the convex forehead, the small almond-shaped eyes, and the narrow mouth. The nearest analogy is a stone statue of Saint Barbara in Jaligny, but in terms of artistic quality the work is closest to the art of Jean de Chartres, a pupil of Colombe.
Catalogue entry
Saint Barbara is an early Christian martyr and one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, that is the intercessor and auxiliary saints particularly venerated in the Middle Ages. Due to her legend, she is invoked against lightning and is the patron saint of trades nowadays related to fire: miners, firefighters, artillerymen, engineers and geologists. According to tradition, her father, a pagan, had locked her into a tower because she refused to marry and wanted to consecrate herself to Christ. Having learned that she had been secretly baptized, her father set fire to the tower. She miraculously escaped, then suffered several tortures and eventually was beheaded. She is represented here with her two most frequent attributes: the tower where she was kept prisoner and the palm of the martyrs. Just like the head of the saint, these two attributes were damaged, probably by iconoclasts during the religious wars of the sixteenth century or the French Revolution.
Bourbonnais, a region that approximately corresponds to the current Allier, was in the late fifteenth and the early sixteenth century a prominent centre for sculpture, thanks to the patronage of the Dukes of Bourbon, especially Pierre II de Beaujeu, duke from 1488 to 1503, and his wife Anne de France (1461–1522), daughter of King Louis XI. Researchers have linked to this period a fairly substantial group of limestone sculptures sharing the following stylistic particularities: flat hair, separated into two wavy bands, framing a clear and rounded forehead; stretched almond-shaped eyes, slightly oblique, framed by slightly swollen eyelids, under barely outlined eyebrow arches; a thin mouth and a small, slightly protruding chin. These works are certainly related to princely orders, but their production methods are poorly known because we have almost no information on the Bourbonnais sculpture workshops.
Seeing the stylistic homogeneity of this group, art historians have suggested the influence of Michel Colombe (1430–1513), a leading sculptor found in Moulins (the capital city of Bourbonnais) in 1484. More precisely, the Saint Barbara in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest can be compared to the works attributed to Jean Guilhomet, also known as Jean de Chartres (1465 – before 1515–1516), a pupil of Michel Colombe. This sculptor, attested in Moulins in the years 1500–1510, in the service of Anne of France, was an important court sculptor. No work can be ascribed to him with certainty since the works mentioned in the archives have all been destroyed, but several sculptures are attributed to him, particularly the group of Saint Peter, Saint Anne educating the Virgin and Saint Suzanne from the church of Chantelle and preserved at the Musée du Louvre, as well as sculptures very similar to the one in Budapest: the Head of a Young Girl from the Musée Anne de Beaujeu in Moulins (inv. no. 1097), the Saint Madeleine from Saint-Pierre church in Montluçon and the Saint Barbara from Saint-Hippolyte church in Jaligny-sur-Besbre. (See La sculpture bourbonnaise, entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance, exh. cat., Musée départemental Anne de Beaujeu, Moulins, 2019 [Dijon: Faton], 2019, 31–32.)
The Saint Barbara of Budapest can also be compared to Saint Mary Magdalene of the church of Saint-Hilaire-la-Croix, but the most convincing comparison is undoubtedly with Saint Barbara in the Musée Anne de Beaujeu in Moulins (inv. no. 84.10.1). They both derive from the model fixed at Jaligny by Jean de Chartres or one of his collaborators.
Unfortunately, the circumstances that led this work to be found in Hungary are unknown; it belonged to the famous collection of the Hungarian Baron Mór Lipót Herzog (1869–1934) and then to Pál Fabo, from whom the museum purchased it in 1952.
Axelle Goupy
Bourbonnais, a region that approximately corresponds to the current Allier, was in the late fifteenth and the early sixteenth century a prominent centre for sculpture, thanks to the patronage of the Dukes of Bourbon, especially Pierre II de Beaujeu, duke from 1488 to 1503, and his wife Anne de France (1461–1522), daughter of King Louis XI. Researchers have linked to this period a fairly substantial group of limestone sculptures sharing the following stylistic particularities: flat hair, separated into two wavy bands, framing a clear and rounded forehead; stretched almond-shaped eyes, slightly oblique, framed by slightly swollen eyelids, under barely outlined eyebrow arches; a thin mouth and a small, slightly protruding chin. These works are certainly related to princely orders, but their production methods are poorly known because we have almost no information on the Bourbonnais sculpture workshops.
Seeing the stylistic homogeneity of this group, art historians have suggested the influence of Michel Colombe (1430–1513), a leading sculptor found in Moulins (the capital city of Bourbonnais) in 1484. More precisely, the Saint Barbara in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest can be compared to the works attributed to Jean Guilhomet, also known as Jean de Chartres (1465 – before 1515–1516), a pupil of Michel Colombe. This sculptor, attested in Moulins in the years 1500–1510, in the service of Anne of France, was an important court sculptor. No work can be ascribed to him with certainty since the works mentioned in the archives have all been destroyed, but several sculptures are attributed to him, particularly the group of Saint Peter, Saint Anne educating the Virgin and Saint Suzanne from the church of Chantelle and preserved at the Musée du Louvre, as well as sculptures very similar to the one in Budapest: the Head of a Young Girl from the Musée Anne de Beaujeu in Moulins (inv. no. 1097), the Saint Madeleine from Saint-Pierre church in Montluçon and the Saint Barbara from Saint-Hippolyte church in Jaligny-sur-Besbre. (See La sculpture bourbonnaise, entre Moyen Âge et Renaissance, exh. cat., Musée départemental Anne de Beaujeu, Moulins, 2019 [Dijon: Faton], 2019, 31–32.)
The Saint Barbara of Budapest can also be compared to Saint Mary Magdalene of the church of Saint-Hilaire-la-Croix, but the most convincing comparison is undoubtedly with Saint Barbara in the Musée Anne de Beaujeu in Moulins (inv. no. 84.10.1). They both derive from the model fixed at Jaligny by Jean de Chartres or one of his collaborators.
Unfortunately, the circumstances that led this work to be found in Hungary are unknown; it belonged to the famous collection of the Hungarian Baron Mór Lipót Herzog (1869–1934) and then to Pál Fabo, from whom the museum purchased it in 1952.
Axelle Goupy
References
Balogh, Jolán, Katalog der ausländischen Bildwerke des Museums der bildenden Künste in Budapest, IV – XVIII. Jahrhundert: 1. Textband Bd. 1, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1975, p. 196., no. 272.
Szmodisné Eszláry, Éva, A Régi Szoborgyűjtemény kincsei, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, 1994, p. 10, 38, ill. 34.
Szmodisné Eszláry, Éva, The treasures of the Old Sculpture collection, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, 1994, p. 10, 38.
The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest: guide, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 2006, p. 146, no. 193.
This record is subject to revision due to ongoing research.