Panels from the High Altar of the Charterhouse of Saint-Honoré, Thuison-les-Abbeville: Virgin and Child

c. 1495

French; Picardy

The Virgin and Child and Saint John the Baptist panels once served as exterior wings for an altarpiece at the Carthusian monastery in Thuison-les-Abbeville, France, formerly part of the Burgundian Netherlands. The figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist appear within shallow stone niches painted to look like the Gothic architecture of a church, with pointed arches and tracery. These enshrined images of Mary and John celebrated the monastery as the site of some of their relics (human remains or objects said to belong to the saints), which were often housed in architectural containers.

Status: On View, Gallery 202
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: French
Title: Panels from the High Altar of the Charterhouse of Saint-Honoré, Thuison-les-Abbeville: Virgin and Child
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1490–1500
Medium: Oil on panel
Dimensions: Panel: 117.3 × 50.8 cm (46 3/16 × 20 in.); Framed: 137.2 × 69.8 cm (54 × 27 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection
Reference Number: 1933.1054
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/16307/manifest.json

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Ernest Prarond, La Topographie historique et archéologique d’Abbeville, Paris and Abbeville, 1871–84, vol. 1, [p. 356].
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Rose Mary Fischkin, “Martin A. Ryerson Collection of Paintings and Sculpture, XIII to XVII Century, Loaned to The Art Institute of Chicago,” unpub. MS, 1926, Ryerson Library, The Art Institute of Chicago, pp. 136–45, nos. 2000–06.
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Walter Heil, “Kunstwerke der französischen Gotik: Leiausstellung im Museum zu Detroit,” Pantheon 3 (1929),pp. 76, 78.
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P. A. Lemoisne, Gothic Painting in France, Florence and New York, 1931, pp. 98, 138. AIC 1932, p. 179.
Daniel Catton Rich, “The Paintings of Martin A. Ryerson,” Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 27 (1933), pp. 9 (ill. 1933.1056), 12.
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175–76 (1933.1056–57).
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The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection, 1961, pp. 138 (ill. 1933.1057–58), 297–98.
Philip C. Fenton, “Hugh of Lincoln: The Hammer of Kings,” History Today 12 (1962), p. 768 (ill. 1933.1060).
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Charles Sterling, “Paoul Grymbault: Éminent Peintre français du XVe siècle,” Revue de l’art, no. 8 (1970), pp. 31–32, figs. 23–24, 27 (1933.1055, 1933.1057–58).
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Christa Grössinger, “The Raising of Lazarus: a French Primitive in Sherborne (Dorset),” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 132 (1979), pp. 9–10, pl. 24A–B (1933.1056– 57).
Nicole Reynaud, “Un Christ jardinier de l’école de Picardie,” Revue du Louvre 29 (1979), pp. 360–61, fig. 4 (1933.1057).
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dans le nord de la France au XVe siècle,” Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de l’art français, année 1979 (1981), pp. 17–24, figs. 11b–13d.
Nicole Reynaud, “Un Tableau du XVe siècle provenant d’Abbeville: La Translation de la châsse de saint Foillan,” Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de l’art français, année 1980 (1982), pp. 25–26.
Albert Châtelet, “Art français et art flamand: Les Échanges dans le domaine pictural,” in La France de la fin du XVe siècle: Renouveau et apogée, ed. Bernard Chevalier and Philippe Contamine, Paris, 1985, p. 227.
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86–92, figs. 18, 21–25.
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pp. 67–68.
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Church of the Carthusian monastery of Saint-Honoré, Thuison-les -Abbeville; sold before the church was demolished in 1796, probably in 1790–91 [It is not known when the retable structure was sold or dismembered. The charterhouse was demolished in 1796 after its suppression in1790; Prarond 1871–84, vol. 2, pp. 527, 536–37, 547, 551–52]; purchased directly or at second hand by the Abbé Louis-Victor Cauchy (d. 1828), then curate of Saint-Sepulchre, Abbeville [Delignières 1898, p. 31]; passed at his death to an unknown inhabitant of Abbeville [Delignières 1898, p. 31]; convent of the Ursulines, Abbeville, 1873 [according to Corblet 1873, 1874.]; acquired by Émile Delignières, Abbeville, probably by 1898 Delignières 1898]; Edmond Soyez, Amiens, between 1902 and 1904 [lent to Paris 1904]; Eugène Kraemer, Paris; sold, Georges Petit Galleries, Paris, June 2, 1913, nos. 17–23, to Kleinberger, Paris; sold to Martin A. Ryerson (d. 1932), Chicago, June 27, 1913 [Kleinberger stock card, Department of European Paintings, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Ryerson paid 105,000 fr. for the panels; receipt, Oct. 27, 1913, Art Institute Archives.]; bequeathed to the AIC, 1933.

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Panels from the High Altar of the Charterhouse of Saint-Honoré, Thuison-les-Abbeville: Virgin and Child

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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