The Glorification of the Virgin

Geertgen tot Sint Jans worked for the Order of Saint John in Haarlem in the late fifteenth century. No more than about ten paintings from his hand are known. This small panel might be one of them, though it could also be the work of an artist in his immediate circle. The panel originally formed the right half of a diptych that was dismantled in the nineteenth century. The second panel, depicting the Crucifixion of Christ, is in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. It may have been ordered by a Dominican monk, who would have kept it in his cell and knelt before it to pray, with a rosary in his hands. Several details in the painting allude to the rosary. The coronet under Mary’s crown, for example, is composed of roses arranged in sequences of five white and one red, and two of the angels encircling her hold rosaries in their hands. The painting represents a vision. The Virgin is seated on the moon, where a demon tries in vain to attack her. The angels hovering around her bear musical instruments and the objects associated with the sufferings of her son. The painting is a marvel, a haunting evocation of loftier world.