CMA Exhibition Feature : The Mass of Saint Gregory

Special Exhibitions

Conserving the Past for the Future


Conserving the Past for the Future
	A Conservation Tour
		The Mass of Saint Gregory: Examining a Painting Using Infrared Reflectography



Hans Baldung Grien (German, 1484/85-1545) The Mass of Saint Gregory, 1511 Oil on panel, 89.2 x 125 cm Gift of the Hanna Fund 1952.112

The Mass of Saint Gregory

This painting is the central part of a triptych. Its focus is Saint Gregory, a 6th-century pope and a father of the Latin (western) Church. Learning that one of his assistant's had expressed skepticism about the Holy Presence, Gregory prayed for a sign of God's divine power. During communion, while Saint Gregory was officiating at a mass, the sign appeared as an embodiment of Christ standing on the altar surrounded by the symbols of the Passion. This occurred at the precise moment of transubstantiation, when the Eucharistic elements (bread and wine) taken as part of communion were believed to change into the body and blood of Christ. Many of the figures in the painting can be identified by their various attributes. Some of them are believed to have been involved in the church around the time of this painting in the early 1500s. The most prominent figure, that of Saint Gregory, is recognizable by his name on the gilded halo.



Hans Baldung Grien, Saint Anne with the Christ Child, the Virgin, and Saint John the Baptist, c. 1511. Samuel H. Kress Collection Photograph © 2001 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington



Hans Baldung Grien, Saint John on Patmos, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The wings, or side panels, of the altarpiece depict Saint John on Patmos (in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and Saint Anne with the Christ Child, the Virgin, and Saint John the Baptist (in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.)

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