National Gallery of Art · Print
A Canon Table with a Lamentation (formerly known as the "Traveling Altar")
Lienhart Ysenhut
- Date
- c. 1490
- Medium
- woodcut printed on parchment in black with hand coloring; set between two panels of printed text to form a triptych; housed in a slipcase with an embroidered crucifixion scene on the front and backed in leather; in turn housed in a velvet, silk, and linen box, strengthened with layers of paper from an account book, with ornamental tassels at each corner
- Dimensions
- image: 12.7 × 12.8 cm (5 × 5 1/16 in.) sheet: 15.9 × 39.8 cm (6 1/4 × 15 11/16 in.) overall (slipcase): 18 × 18 cm (7 1/16 × 7 1/16 in.) overall (box): 20.5 × 20.5 × 5 cm (8 1/16 × 8 1/16 × 1 15/16 in.)
- Classification
- Accession number
- 1959.16.15
- Credit line
- Rosenwald Collection
- Time span
- 1401 to 1500
- Department
- CG-E
Subjects and terms
- Woman
- Death
- Christ
- Costume
- Basel
- Prayer
- Writing
Provenance
Poor Clare convent, Mulhouse, from c. 1495 at the earliest to 1523.[1] Edmund Schilling? [1888-1974], Frankfurt and London[2]; (August Laube, Zurich); (probably via Heinrich Eisemann [1890-1972], London); purchased by Lessing J. Rosenwald [1891-1979], 14 March 1956; gift to NGA, 1959. [1] 1523 marked the adoption of the Reformation, when convent treasures were sold or returned to nuns who had gifted them. [2.] Schilling published the first description of hidden documents in the box's lid and may have been the owner who sold it through August Laube (Schilling 1947).
Inscription
at left, printed in letter press: [Latin texts of the main eucharistic elements of the Catholic Mass: the Gloria and the Credo]; at right, printed in letter press: [Latin texts spoken at the Offertory: the prayers for the offering of the Host, the mingling of wine and water, the offering of the wine, the appeal for God's acceptance of the offering of the Mass, the call to the Holy Spirit, and the words of consecration]; within the woodcut image at center, in coat of arms at lower right: [helmet monogram of the printer]; verso, at left, in pen and black ink: [prayer to Christ and the Trinity]; verso, at right, in pen and black ink: [text of John 1:1-14] [see Parshall, Peter, and Rainer Schoch. _Origins of European Printmaking: Fifteenth-Century Woodcuts and Their Public._ Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2005, pp. 164-167.]
Watermarks
none
NGA object ID 46001. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.