Getty Museum

An Angel Presents Christ's Burial Garment to the Virgin; The Virgin Shows the Garment to Saint John

Date

about 1330–1350

Medium

Pen and black ink, tempera colors, and gold leaf

Culture

German

Department

Manuscripts

Institution

Getty Museum

This leaf once belonged to a richly illuminated manuscript containing a copy of the *World Chronicle* by Rudolph von Ems and the *Life of Mary* by Brother Philipp, a Carthusian monk. The Getty leaf would have originally been found in the portion of the manuscript containing the latter text. Written in rhyming Middle High German verse around 1300, the *Life of Mary* tells stories about the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ and one of the most important Christian devotional figures in the Middle Ages. This leaf specifically deals with an episode that took place after Christ’s believed ascension to heaven. A pair of unframed scenes fill the lower margin, showing Mary receiving Christ’s white mantle from an angel and then showing it to his disciple Saint John the Evangelist. Filling the entirety of the bottom margin and even colliding with the text block, these scenes impart a sense of immediacy to the viewer. The story of Mary receiving the mantle was seen as proof of Christ’s ascension. The images underscore the text’s account that the mantle had a miraculous and uninterrupted history from Christ in heaven to the angel all the way to Mary and, finally, to John.

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