The Miniature Altarpiece (OA 5612) is a Gothic boxwood miniature in the form of a small altarpiece, made in the Netherlands c.1520-1530, probably by the workshop of Adam Dircksz (also known as Adam Theodrici), about whom almost nothing is known. It has been held by the Louvre (catalogue number OA 5612) since 1901, but is not on public display. It was displayed with other boxwood miniatures in 2016–17 in an exhibition that visited the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Rijksmuseum.[1]
The object is made from intricately carved boxwood. It comprises two main registers of carvings depicting Biblical scenes, each with a door that opens to reveal an interior triptych with further carvings of Biblical scenes, all standing on predella supported by tetramorph carvings of symbols representing the Four Evangelists (ox, eagle, angel, lion) on a wooden plinth. With the doors closed, the outside surfaces of the doors are elaborately decorated in Gothic style, with the upper pair of doors depicting Jesus at the Mount of Olives on the left, and the Kiss of Judas on the right, while the lower doors depict the Holy Kinship on the left, and Mary with her parents St Anne and St Joachim and a lamb on the right.[3] It is held in the Louvre, Paris.
The rear is plain and undecorated, suggesting it was intended to be displayed against a wall. The original tooled and stamped leather case survives, decorated with the Tree of Jesse, and bearing an inscription down the sides: "O MATER DEI MEMENTO / MEI RIENS SANS PAIN" (Latin: "O mother of God, remember me"; and French: "nothing without bread").
The Portinari Altarpiece or Portinari Triptych is an oil-on-wood triptych painting by the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes, commissioned by Tommaso Portinari, representing the Adoration of the Shepherds. It measures 253 x 304 cm, and is now in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy. This altarpiece is filled with figures and religious symbols. Of all the late-fifteenth-century Flemish artworks, this painting is said to be the most studied.
The Nativity of Jesus has been a major subject of Christian art since the 4th century.
The Master of the Morrison Triptych is the name given to an unknown Early Netherlandish painter active in Antwerp around 1500-1510. He is named for the Morrison Triptych, now in Toledo, Ohio, United States, which is described below.
The Modena Triptych is 1568 triptych by the artist El Greco, who was also known as Doménikos Theotokópoulos.
The Braque Triptych is a c. 1452 oil-on-oak altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden. When open, its three half-length panels reveal, from left to right, John the Baptist, The Virgin Mary with Jesus and Saint John the Evangelist, and on the right, Mary Magdalene. When the wings are closed, the work shows a vanitas motif of a skull and cross.
The Master of Delft was a Dutch painter of the final period of Early Netherlandish painting, whose name is unknown. He may have been born around 1470. The notname was first used in 1913 by Max Jakob Friedländer, in describing the wings of a Triptych with the Virgin and Child with St Anne with the central panel by the Master of Frankfurt, which is now in Aachen. This has donor portraits of an identifiable family from Delft, that of the Burgomaster of Delft, Dirck Dircksz van Beest Heemskerck (1463–1545), with his wife and children.
The Guimiliau Parish close is located at Guimiliau in the arrondissement of Morlaix in Brittany in north-western France. The parish takes its name from Saint Miliau who was beheaded in 792 on his brother's orders. He is a saint called upon by those suffering from ulcers and rheumatism.
Prayer Bead with the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion is a small south Netherlandish prayer nut, carved in fine-grained boxwood, dated c 1500–10. It is now in the collection of The Cloisters, New York. Originally the bead would have been part of a complete rosary set, and its size suggests its use as an Ave bead, where the supplicant would recite the "Hail Mary". Objects of this type were in great demand in the early sixteenth century. Apart from use in private veneration, they could be worn as necklaces or hung from belts as fashionable accessories. The exceptional craftsmanship of this example indicates that it was intended for a member of the high nobility. J. P. Morgan donated the bead to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1917.
The Buhl Altarpiece is a late 15th-century, Gothic altarpiece of colossal dimensions now kept in the parish church Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste of Buhl in the Haut-Rhin département of France. It was painted by followers of Martin Schongauer, most probably for the convent of the Dominican sisters of Saint Catherine of Colmar, and moved to its present location in the early 19th century. It is classified as a Monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.
Gothic boxwood miniatures are very small Christian wood sculptures produced during the 15th and 16th centuries in the Low Countries, at the end of the Gothic period and during the emerging Northern Renaissance. They consist of highly intricate layers of reliefs, often rendered to nearly microscopic level, and are made from boxwood, which has a fine grain and high density suitable for detailed micro-carving. There are around 150 surviving examples; most are spherical rosary beads, statuettes, skulls, or coffins; some 20 are in the form of polyptychs, including triptych and diptych altarpieces, tabernacles and monstrances. The polyptychs are typically 10–13 cm in height. Most of the beads are 10–15 cm in diameter and designed so they could be held in the palm of a hand, hung from necklaces or belts, or worn as fashionable accessories.
The Bladelin Altarpiece, or Middelburg Altarpiece, is a triptych painting created around 1450 by the Flemish painter Rogier van der Weyden, towards the end of his artistic career. It depicts scenes relating to the birth of Jesus; and as the only nativity scene definitively attributed to van der Weyden is sometimes known as the Nativity Triptych.
Prayer nuts or Prayer beads are very small 16th century small Gothic boxwood miniature sculptures, mostly originating from the north of today's Holland. They are typically detachable and open into halves of highly detailed and intricate Christian religious scenes. Their size varies between the size of a walnut and a golf ball. They are mostly the same shape, decorated with carved openwork Gothic tracery and flower-heads. Most are 2–5 cm in diameter and designed so they could be held in the palm of a hand during personal devotion or hung from necklaces or belts as fashionable accessories.
Miniature Altarpiece with the Crucifixion is a very small and complex early 16th century Netherlandish microcarved miniature sculpture in boxwood, now in The Cloisters, New York. The central carvings of the upper triptych show the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus, each outer wing contains two scenes from the biblical Old Testament. The complex base contains a round carving which opens like a boxwood prayer nut.
Adam Dircksz is the name ascribed by some art historians to a highly influential Dutch sculptor whose workshop is often attributed with the creation of around 60 of the c. 150 extant Gothic boxwood miniature micro-carvings. Other historians prefer to attribute various unrelated artists who are given individual or grouped notnames. It may be that the master was the innovator in this style of sculpture, and that similar works were directly inspired. According to the British Museum, Dircksz may have served "elite patrons in the circle of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, with a strong link to Delft."
The miniature altarpiece in the British Museum, London, is a very small portable Gothic boxwood miniature sculpture completed in 1511 by the Northern Netherlands master sometimes identified as Adam Dircksz, and members of his workshop. At 25.1 cm (9.9 in) high, it is built from a series of architectural layers or registers, which culminate at an upper triptych, whose center panel contains a minutely detailed and intricate Crucifixion scene filled with multitudes of figures in relief. Its outer wings show Christ Carrying the Cross on the left, and the Resurrection on the right.
The Adoration of the Magi altarpiece is a small Gothic boxwood miniature, made in the Netherlands c. 1500–1530, attributed to the workshop of Adam Dircksz. Such rarefied and highly ornate objects were intended for private devotion, tand took, by modern art historian estimates, decades to complete, periods equivalent to the entire career of a medieval master carver. Just around 150 of these sculptures from the late 15th and early 16th centuries remain today, and the elite echelons of collectors in the 19th century placed a high value on them despite the fact that it is unknown how many of them were manufactured.
The Miniature Altarpiece in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is a small, 9.3 cm high, Gothic boxwood miniature triptych completed in the Netherlands c. 1500-1520. The central carving is made from boxwood and shows a relief of the Virgin and Child attended by two saints, thought to be Anne, who is shown with wings and holding a large crucifix, and James the Great who wears a hat and holds a staff. The outer semi-circular wings and shell are lined with silver and decorated with foliate designs. It stands on a silver plinth with pierced quatrefoils, and topped by a cherub's head and a statuette of God the Father. It is thought the silver-work was added between 1550-1570.
Adoration of the Magi is a painting in tempera on wood panel by Luca Signorelli (1450–1523) and his assistants, executed c. 1493–1494, and now in the Louvre in Paris. It was probably the first painting he produced in Città di Castello, and originally hung over the main altar of the monastery church of Sant'Agostino. The surface displayed within the frame is 331 cm by 245.5 cm. In late 2022 it was not on display.
The name miniature altarpiece may refer to several different Gothic boxwood miniatures:
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