{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O64906"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O64906/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AL0015/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AL0015/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006AL0015","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AK9998","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017KA8473","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O64906/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O64906","accessionNumber":"C.311-1928","objectType":"Panel","titles":[{"title":"Baptism of Christ, The","type":"generic title"}],"summaryDescription":"This panel is one of many in the V&A that comes from the cloisters at Mariawald. These panels come from ten windows on the west and north sides of the cloister, plus one from the north end of the eastern part. The glazing of these cloisters began about 1510 and seem to have been completed in the 1530s.\r\n\r\nMariawald was a Cistercian abbey founded in 1480. The Cistercians were a monastic order established in 1098 in Burgundy at Citeaux. The founder of the Cistercians had broken away from the Benedictines which had been the first monastic order to be established in Europe, in the 6th century.\r\n\r\nDuring the Revolutionary struggles in France and the subsequent religious upheavals under Napoleon, many monastic institutions on the continent were 'secularised' and their buildings destroyed. The abbey of Mariawald was closed down in 1802 but fortunately its buildings, including the cloisters, remain  largely intact. However, the stained glass windows had been removed and it is believed that they were purchased by John Christopher Hampp of Norwich. Hampp sold the Mariawald panels to various churches and to private collectors. Many of these were purchased by the collector, Lord Brownlow who had them installed in his new chapel at Ashridge Park in Hertfordshire between 1811 and 1831.\r\n\r\nIn 1928 the contents of Ashridge Park were sold at auction and a private collector purchased the stained glass and gave it to the Victoria & Albert Museum.\r\n\r\nW are able to reconstruct how the panels were placed in the cloister windows. Each window was composed of two openings ('lights'). Each light was composed of three large panels, plus one small tracery panel. So there would have been eight panels to each window. \r\n\r\nFrom the surviving stained glass panels we can determine the theme of the cloister glazing. Each window had two panels depicting scenes from the Old Testament and two panels with scenes from the New Testament. Above the biblical story panels, were two smaller prophet (or 'messenger') panels. These contained half-images of Old Testament prophets holding scrolls with text relating to biblical passages connected with the scenes below. At the base of each window were donor and patron saint panels. These donors were the ones who contributed to the financing of the cloister glazing.\r\n\r\nThis type of narrative arrangement is known as 'typological'. Each Old Testament story was a 'type' or a prefigurement of a New Testament story ('antitype'). The prophets on each window would hold text from the Bible relating to the Old and New Testament stories. For example, this panel shows the New Testament story of the 'Baptism of Christ'. It was placed in the window just below that of the Old Testament scene of 'Naaman washing in the Jordan' (Museum No.C.300-1928). Just as Jesus Christ was purified by baptism in the river, Naaman was cleansed of his leprosy in the healing waters of the river.\r\n\r\nThe typological arrangement was popular in the Middle Ages. The stories were reproduced in manuscripts and in engravings from woodcuts and collectively became known as 'Biblia Pauperum' ('Bibles of the Poor'). At the end of the 15th century the Biblia Pauperum were printed in book form and sold in their thousands. These books were used as design sources for artworks including stained glass panels.","physicalDescription":"St. John the Baptist kneels on the banks of the River Jordan and baptises Christ who is in the centre, standing in the river. On the right, an angels stands holding a blue cloak which he will give to Christ. In the central part of the top of the panel the dove of the Holy Spirit appears beneath a scroll which bears an inscription.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Master of St Severin","id":"A6016"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"AAT251917"},"note":"possibly"}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"glass","id":"AAT10797"},{"text":"lead","id":"AAT11022"}],"techniques":[{"text":"painting","id":"x30598"},{"text":"silver staining","id":"x38899"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Clear and coloured glass with painted details and yellow (silver) stain","categories":[{"text":"Glass","id":"THES48946"},{"text":"Stained Glass","id":"THES48891"},{"text":"Religion","id":"THES48900"},{"text":"Christianity","id":"THES48978"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"CER","id":"THES48594"},"images":["2006AL0015","2006AK9998","2017KA8473"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"SHLN","id":"THES49063"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Panel","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"No","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Lower Rhine (Germany)","id":"x37793"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca.1520-1521","earliest":"1515-01-01","latest":"1524-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by E.E. Cook Esquire. ","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"773","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"framed","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"710","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"framed","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"32","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"framed","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Measured for the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"Hic est filius meus dilectus in [quo mihi] complac [ui]","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"Latin","medium":"stained glass","method":"","position":"centre top","script":"","translation":"This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.","transliteration":"","type":"Decoration","note":""}],"objectHistory":"Believed to be from the sixth window in the cloisters at Mariawald.","historicalContext":"Mariawald was a Cistercian abbey founded in 1480. The Cistercians were a monastic order established in 1098 in Burgundy at Citeaux. The founder of the Cistercians had broken away from the Benedictines which had been the first monastic order to be established in Europe, in the 6th century.\r\n\r\nDuring the Revolutionary struggles in France and the subsequent religious upheavals under Napoleon, many monastic institutions on the continent were 'secularised' and their buildings destroyed. The abbey of Mariawald was closed down in 1802 but fortunately its buildings, including the cloisters, remain  largely intact. However, the stained glass windows had been removed and it is believed that they were purchased by John Christopher Hampp of Norwich. Hampp sold the Mariawald panels to various churches and to private collectors. Many of these were purchased by the collector, Lord Brownlow who had them installed in his new chapel at Ashridge Park in Hertfordshire between 1811 and 1831.\r\n\r\nIn 1928 the contents of Ashridge Park were sold at auction and a private collector purchased the stained glass and gave it to the Victoria & Albert Museum.\r\n\r\nThis panel is one of many in the V&A that comes from the cloisters at Mariawald. These panels come from ten windows on the west and north sides of the cloister, plus one from the north end of the eastern part. The glazing of these cloisters began about 1510 and seem to have been completed in the 1530s.\r\n\r\nAs the cloisters were never dismantled we can reconstruct how the panels were placed in the architectural structure. The window openings in the cloisters were each composed of two openings ('lights'). Each light was composed of three large panels, plus one small tracery panel. So there would have been eight panels to each window.\r\n\r\nFrom the surviving stained glass panels we can determine the theme of the cloister glazing. Each window had two panels depicting scenes from the Old Testament and two panels with scenes from the New Testament. Above the biblical story panels, were two smaller prophet (or 'messenger') panels. These contained half-images of Old Testament prophets holding scrolls with text relating to biblical passages connected with the scenes below. At the base of each window were donor and patron saint panels. These donors were the ones who contributed to the financing of the cloister glazing.\r\n\r\nThis type of narrative arrangement is known as 'typological'. Each Old Testament story was a 'type' or a prefigurement of a New Testament story ('antitype'). For example, the Old Testament story of 'Elisha greeted by the Sons of the Prophet' was a prefigurement of the New Testament 'Entry of Christ into Jerusalem' which occurred on what we now call 'Palm Sunday'.\r\n\r\nThe typological arrangement was popular in the Middle Ages. The stories were reproduced in manuscripts and in engravings from woodcuts and collectively became known as 'Biblia Pauperum' ('Bibles of the Poor'). At the end of the 15th century the Biblia Pauperum were printed in book form and sold in their thousands. These books were used as design sources for artworks including stained glass panels.","briefDescription":"Clear and coloured glass with painted details and yellow (silver) stain. Depicting the Baptism of Jesus Christ. From the cloisters of the abbey of Mariawald. German (Lower Rhine), c.1520-1","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Jakob Polius, 'Analecta sive collectanea antiquitatem', Duren, Stadtarchiv, A30, Hs. 2"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"James Wyatt, Description of the Stained Glass Panels at Ashridge Chapel, privately printed, 1906"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"MR James, Notes of Glass in Ashridge Chapel, Grantham, 1906"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Hermann Schmitz, Die Glasgemalde des Koniglichen Kunstgewerbemuseums in Berlin, Berlin, 1913"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Bernard Rackham, 'The Ashridge stained glass', Old Furniture, vol.5 (1928), pp.33-7"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"C.Goerke, Das Zisterzienserkloster Mariawald, Mariawald bei Heimbach, 1932"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Paul Clemen, Die Kunstdenkmaler der Rheinprovinz, Kreis Schleiden, XI, 2, Dusseldorf, 1932"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"E. Wackenroder, Die Kunstdenkmaker des Kreoses Schleiden, Dusseldorf, 1932"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Bernard Rackham, 'The Mariawald-Ashridge Glass', Burlington Magazine, Nov. 1944, pp.266-273"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Bernard Rackham, 'The Mariawald-Ashridge Glass II', Burlington Magazine, April 1945, pp.90-94"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Bernard Rackham, 'The Ashridge Stained Glass', Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 3rd series, vol.X (1945-7), pp.1-22"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Wilhelm Neuss, ed., Die Glasmalereien aus dem Steinfelder Kruezgang, Moenchengladbach, 1955"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"J. Kurthen, 'Die alten Kunstfenster'', in Mariawald: Geschichte eines Klosters, Heimback/Eifel, 1962, pp.244-64"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"M. Conrad, 'Zur Geschichte der alten Glasgemalde aus dem Kreuzgang von Kloster Mariawald', Heimatkalendar des Landkreises Schleiden, 1969, pp.95-102"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"William Cole, 'A Hitherto Unrecorded Panel of Stained Glass from the Abbey of Mariawald', Journal of the British Society of Master Glass Painters, XVII (1981-2). pp.21-4"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Avril Henry, ed., Biblia Pauperum, Scolar Press, 1987"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Brigitte Wolff-Wintrich, 'Kolner Glasmaleriel sammlungen des 19. Jahrhunderts', in Lust und Verlust Kolner Sammler zwischen Trikolore und Preussenadler, exhibition catalogue (Kunsthalle Koln), Koln, 1995, pp.341-54"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"H.Zakin, 'Mariawald: Cistercian Narrative', in Stained Glass as Monumental Painting, XIXth International Colloquium, CVMA, Krakow, 1998, Cracow, 2000, pp.273-80"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Raguin and Zakin, Stained Glass before 1700, part 2, pp.127-9, 170-6"},{"reference":{"text":"Foister, Susan, Art of Light: German Renaissance Stained Glass, London: The National Gallery, 2008.","id":"AUTH347591"},"details":"","free":""}],"production":"In the style of the Master of Saint Severin, Cologne. The image of the Baptism is after the engraving of the same subject by Martin Schongauer.","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[{"text":"Jesus Christ","id":"N1515"},{"text":"John (Saint John the Baptist)","id":"N450"}],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[{"text":"Baptism of Christ","id":"V168"}],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"angels","id":"x30526"},{"text":"dove","id":"x30126"},{"text":"landscapes (representations)","id":"AAT15636"},{"text":"scrolls (information artifacts)","id":"AAT28629"},{"text":"columns (architectural elements)","id":"AAT1571"}],"contentConcepts":[{"text":"Trinity, doctrine in Christianity","id":"x35214"},{"text":"divinity","id":"AAT55981"}],"contentLiteraryRefs":["New Testament","Biblia Pauperum"],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["C.311-1928"],"accessionNumberNum":"311","accessionNumberPrefix":"C","accessionYear":1928,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2026PN0990","2026PN0988","2019LM9721","2019LN4157","2019LR0167","2019LT2778","2019LU3228"],"recordModificationDate":"2026-03-19","recordCreationDate":"2002-04-22","availableToBook":false}}