On view
European Art
Saint Mary Magdalene's Last Communion,
ca. 1500
Master of Perea, active ca. 1490–1510, Valencia, Spain
y1943-181
Angels accompany Mary Magdalene as she receives the Eucharist before her death in this illustration of an apocryphal episode recounted in Jacobus de Voragine’s The Golden Legend, a late medieval bestseller about the lives of Christian saints. This panel, perhaps once part of a larger altarpiece, exemplifies the range and scale of art and architectural production dedicated to the performance of the Christian liturgy. Within a church interior, Mary Magdalene receives the communion wafer from a luxurious box designed to protect it, while a chalice rests on the altar nearby. In the distance, a group of clerics take part in a separate observance with a large manuscript before an elaborate altarpiece.
Information
Title
Saint Mary Magdalene's Last Communion
Dates
ca. 1500
Maker
Medium
Oil on wood panel
Dimensions
43.5 × 32 cm (17 1/8 × 12 5/8 in.)
frame: 57.1 × 46.5 × 6.7 cm (22 1/2 × 18 5/16 × 2 5/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Jacques Stern
Object Number
y1943-181
Inscription
y
Culture
Type
Materials
Unknown party, France (?). Harry G. Sperling / F. Kleinberger Galleries Inc., New York and Paris (?). Paul M. Byk / Arnold Seligmann, Rey & Co., New York; Jacques Stern, Princeton, NJ; 1943 gift to the Princeton University Art Museum.
- Chandler Rathfon Post and Harold E. Wethey, A history of Spanish painting, (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1930-66)., Vol. 2, pt. 2: p. 829-31; fig. 347
- Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., "A Painting by the Perea Master", Record of the Museum of Historic Art, Princeton University 3, no. 1 (Spring, 1944): p. 3-4., p. 3-4; figure
