Regina Coeli: les images mariales et le culte des reliques : entre Orient et Occident au Moyen Âge

Uittreksel

Scholarly investigation of devotional images from the medieval period has never explored, in a European context, the question of Marian paintings functioning as portable relics. The model of the "picture-reliquary" : a single, diptych, or triptych panel comprising the portrait of the "Virgin and Child" painted on wood (or, more rarely, on gilded glass, "verreéglomisé") set in a large framework encrusted with relics (occasionally with precious stones) was particularly widespread in the territory of Little Poland from c. 1420. Polish reliquaries, known until the beginning of the sixteenth century, should be considered as an adaptation of iconic types and forms of Byzantine provenance, which were reinterpreted in the painting of the Italian "Trecento". Of particular note is the Siennese model of the portable Marian altar piece made popular from the 1330s-40s. From the comparative study of the works, concerning their similarities and their antiquity, one envisages the advent of such a formal concept in Poland either directly from Italy, or by the intermediary of Bohemia.