A Bishop Saint with a Donor (Saint Louis of Toulouse?)
1404
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1404
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
A Bishop Saint with a Donor (Saint Louis of Toulouse?) is a 1404 unspecified by Unknown, a Byzantine icon painting work, depicting Catalonia, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A young bishop in gold and red robes stands over a man in black. The bishop holds a tall staff and wears a pointed hat. The man below looks up, hands folded in prayer. This painting was made in Catalonia, Spain, in the early 1400s. The bishop is likely Saint Louis of Toulouse, a royal saint who gave up his throne to become a priest. The man in black paid for the painting—wealthy people often did this to show devotion. To see more art like this, look up spain, catalonia, early 15th century.
The style of this painting suggests that it comes from Catalonia in northeastern Spain, though the identity of its artist remains unknown. The painting represents a youthful bishop-saint identifiable by a bishop’s symbols of authority, his miter and crozier. He wears rich vestments. Below, the figure in black represents the donor of the painting—likely a wealthy layperson rather than a cleric. The identity of the saintly bishop is speculated to be Saint Louis, Bishop of Toulouse, on the basis of his youth. Louis was consecrated Bishop of Toulouse in 1297, died six months later at the age of…
Read the full account in the museum source.
