Saint Mary Cleophas and Her Family. Bernhard Strigel
Saint Mary Cleophas and Her Family together with its companion piece Saint Mary Salome and Her Family, also in the National Gallery, were wings from an altarpiece combining painting and sculpture that was dedicated to the Holy Kinship or extended family of Christ. There was a fascination with the details of the life of the Holy Family as well as a growing desire to experience the Gospels on a human level in the late Middle Ages. According to the Golden Legend, written about 1270 as a compilation of earlier tales, Saint Anne married three times, her second husband being the father of Mary Cleophas, who was thus the half-sister of the Virgin Mary.
circa 1520/1528
oil on panel
125.5 × 65.8 cm (49.4 × 25.9 in)
National Gallery of Art
Gallery 35A
Accession number 1961.9.88
Object history Possibly O. Streber, Munich. (Haskard Bank, Florence, and Charles Fairfax Murray, as agent, by 1900); sold 1900 to (Thomas Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London); sold May 1900 to Rodolphe Kann [d. 1905], Paris; by descent to executors of the Kann estate: Edouard Kann, Paris; Betty Schnaffer [née Kann], Frankfurt; Martin and Eleanore [née Kann] Bromberg, Hamburg; Jacob and Mathilde [née Kann] Emden, Hamburg, and Edmond and Madeline [née Kann] Bickard See, Paris. (Duveen Brothers, Paris, August, 1907); purchased August 1907 by members of the Kann family, possibly Martin and Eleanore Bromberg, Hamburg. Probably Dr. Max Emden, Switzerland, by 1939. (Wildenstein & Co., New York, by 1939); purchased February 1954 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; at the NGA from 1956; gift 1961 to NGA.
Credit line Samuel H. Kress Collection
Inscriptions on halo of female figure: SANCTA MARIA SALOME; on halo of child at center: SANCTVS IACOBVS MA; on halo of child at lower left: SANCTV IOHANES EWAN
The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
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