Art Institute of Chicago

Reliquary Bust of Saint Margaret of Antioch

Niclaus Gerhaert (Netherlandish, active in Germany, 1462–1473)

Date

c. 1470

Medium

Wood with traces of 19th-century polychromy

Culture

Netherlands

Department

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

The now empty space in the chest of this bust of Saint Margaret of Antioch once displayed a relic—an object associated with a saint or martyr. Margaret’s hands rest on a book, a symbol of her piety, and a dragon, an allusion to her struggle with Satan disguised as a beast. According to legend, a dragon swallowed her whole after her conversion to Christianity, but after making the sign of the cross, she burst forth from the dragon’s belly. She later became the patron saint of women in childbirth. Niclaus Gerhaert, whose female depictions are often characterized by an oval face ending in a round, dimpled chin, introduced an unconventional naturalism into his sculptures, thereby bringing sacred figures closer to the realm of the fifteenth-century viewer. In its original setting—the Abbey Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Wissembourg, France—this bust was likely accompanied by three others of early martyred women: saints Barbara and Catherine (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and Agnes (Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire, UK). Both Margaret and Agnes are carved in walnut and lean forward with inclined heads, suggesting that they were originally installed next to each other and intended to be seen from below.

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