Shrine of St Ursula on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
The Shrine of St. Ursula is a carved and gilded wooden 
The two "façades" contain the representations of the ''Virgin and Child between Two Nuns'' (the two donors, including the abbess), and ''St. Ursula Protecting the Holy Virgins''. Both the scenes are embedded within a painted niche which simulates a perspective interior of the shrine.
At the sides, under two small arcades, are six scenes of the life and martyrdom of St. Ursula, which resemble the style of the stained glasses in contemporary churches. They include:
*''Arrival in Cologne''
*''Arrival in Basel''
*''Arrival in Rome''
*''Leaving from Basel''
*''Martyrdom of the Pilgrims''
*''Martyrdom of St. Ursula''
The scenes share the same pictorial background, set in northern German cities (such as Cologne, with the unfinished
site presenting the text of the legend of St. Ursula by Jacobus da Varagine and scenes of the St. Ursula shrine painted by Hans Memling (recent pictures)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Ursula Shrine Paintings by Hans Memling 1489 paintings Paintings in the Old St. John's Hospital Christian reliquaries Paintings of the Madonna and Child category:Paintings of Saint Ursula
The Shrine of St. Ursula is a carved and gilded wooden reliquary
A reliquary (also referred to as a ''shrine'', by the French term ''châsse'', and historically including ''wikt:phylactery, phylacteries'') is a container for relics. A portable reliquary may be called a ''fereter'', and a chapel in which it i ...
containing oil on panel inserts (87x33x91 cm) by Hans Memling
Hans Memling (also spelled Memlinc; c. 1430 – 11 August 1494) was a painter active in Flanders, who worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. He was born in the Middle Rhine region and probably spent his childhood in Mainz. He ...
. Dating to c. 1489, it is housed in the Hans Memling Museum in the Old St. John's Hospital
The Hospital of St. John (''Oud Sint-Janshospitaal'') was a medieval hospital in Bruges. It was founded in the mid-12th century.
Located next to the Church of Our Lady, the premises contain some of Europe's oldest surviving hospital buildings. ...
(''Sint-Janshospitaal''), Bruges
Bruges ( , nl, Brugge ) is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the sixth-largest city of the countr ...
, in the Flemish Region
The Flemish Region ( nl, Vlaams Gewest, ),; german: Flämische Region usually simply referred to as Flanders ( nl, link=no, Vlaanderen ) ; german: link=no, Flandern is one of the three regions of Belgium—alongside the Walloon Region and t ...
of modern-day Belgium.
The work was commissioned by the Hospital of St. John, the current museum's seat. Differently from other works by Memling, such as the '' Triptych of the Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine'' or the Florens Triptych, it is neither signed nor dated. It was a container for Saint Ursula
Saint Ursula (Latin for 'little female bear', german: link=no, Heilige Ursula) is a legendary Romano-British Christian saint who died on 21 October 383. Her feast day in the pre-1970 General Roman Calendar is 21 October. There is little infor ...
's relics which was shown publicly only in her feast day. The relics were solemnly put in the shrine on 21 November 1489.
Description
The shrine is in the shape of a Gothic chapel, according to a customary format used in goldsmithing. It has a steeply pointed cover, as typical of northern European countries, with three painted tondoes on each side. Attributed to Memling's workshop, they depict, on one side, the ''First Eleven Virgins with the Pope, a Cardinal, a Bishop and Etherius (characters of the saint's legend); on the other side, the ''Coronation of the Virgin with the Holy Trinity''.
The two "façades" contain the representations of the ''Virgin and Child between Two Nuns'' (the two donors, including the abbess), and ''St. Ursula Protecting the Holy Virgins''. Both the scenes are embedded within a painted niche which simulates a perspective interior of the shrine.
At the sides, under two small arcades, are six scenes of the life and martyrdom of St. Ursula, which resemble the style of the stained glasses in contemporary churches. They include:
*''Arrival in Cologne''
*''Arrival in Basel''
*''Arrival in Rome''
*''Leaving from Basel''
*''Martyrdom of the Pilgrims''
*''Martyrdom of St. Ursula''
The scenes share the same pictorial background, set in northern German cities (such as Cologne, with the unfinished Cathedral
A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...
) and painted with great attention to today's life details.
The decoration is completed by the carvings in International Gothic
International Gothic is a period of Gothic art which began in Burgundy, France, and northern Italy in the late 14th and early 15th century. It then spread very widely across Western Europe, hence the name for the period, which was introduced by th ...
style, including pinnacles, holed friezes and, on the piers at the corners, the saints James, John the Evangelist, Agnes and Elizabeth of Hungary
Elizabeth of Hungary (german: Heilige Elisabeth von Thüringen, hu, Árpád-házi Szent Erzsébet, sk, Svätá Alžbeta Uhorská; 7 July 1207 – 17 November 1231), also known as Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia, or Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia, ...
.
Sources
*External links
site presenting the text of the legend of St. Ursula by Jacobus da Varagine and scenes of the St. Ursula shrine painted by Hans Memling (recent pictures)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Ursula Shrine Paintings by Hans Memling 1489 paintings Paintings in the Old St. John's Hospital Christian reliquaries Paintings of the Madonna and Child category:Paintings of Saint Ursula