click the inner edge of each panel to open the altarpiece and reveal the interior panels, then
click the outer edge of the outer panels to close it
The Coronation of the Virgin was purchased with the Hillyer/Mather/Tryon Fund; the Beatrice O. Chace, class of 1928, Fund; the Dorothy C. Miller, class of 1925, Fund; the Madeleine H. Russell, class of 1937, Fund; the Janet Wright Ketcham, class of 1953, Fund; the Margaret Walker
Purinton Fund; the Carol Ramsay Chandler Fund; the Acquisition Fund in Honor of Charles Chetham; the Katherine S. Pearce, class of 1915, Fund; and the Eva W. Nair Fund.
The Coronation of the Virgin, dated 1515 on the central panel, is the earliest known altarpiece
by Bartholomäus Bruyn, the Elder (German, 1493-1555), a contemporary of Lucas Cranach
and Hans Holbein and the foremost painter in Cologne in the first half of the sixteenth
century. It was painted for Dr. Peter von Clapis, law professor of the University of Cologne,
and his wife, Bela Bonenberg, who are represented in small donor portraits in the center panel,
which also bears their coats of arms. This altarpiece, rare for being intact (with the exception
of a later enframement), is a major addition to the collection of the Smith College Museum
of Art.
The center panel shows the Virgin being crowned by Christ and God the Father, dressed in
richly brocaded and jeweled robes, with the Dove of the Holy Spirit above her head. She is
surrounded by angels, and kneeling at her feet are the figures of the donors. The left side
panel depicts Saint Ivo, the patron saint of lawyers; Saint Anne, the mother of Mary, is shown
in the right panel. The figures and their faces are exceptionally well-rendered, a testament
to Bruyn’s skill as a portrait painter, and are set within a beautifully depicted landscape.
The exterior paintings of Mary and the Archangel Gabriel form a scene of the Annunciation
when the altarpiece wings are closed.
