Currently not on view
The Princeton Saint (Saint Martha?),
ca. 1515–25
Saint Martha was one of the sisters of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead. According to the Golden Legend, the thirteenth-century compilation of oral traditions written down by the Dominican bishop Giacomo da Vorazze, Martha embarked from the Holy Land with her sister Mary, Lazarus, St. Maximin in a ship without tiller or sail that landed in Southern France. There they converted the inhabitants. Martha was renowned for taming a monstrous dragon on the Rhône River and binding him with her belt (the remains of a leash on her arm could refer to this deed). She also founded a convent and was famed for her austere life. Saint Martha would therefore be an appropriate exemplar for a Benedictine Abbey, and this may have been a devotional statue.
Information
ca. 1515–25
Breutuil-sur-Noye (Oise) [1]. Georges J. Demotte; 1908 purchase by Allan Marquand [2]; gift to the Princeton University Art Museum.
[1] Note of Frances Follin Jones: "This was no. 645 in the original inventory, where it is noted as coming from a tomb in a church belonging to a monastery, now ruined, in Breuteuil -sur-Noye (Oise), Picardie. Presumably this information came from the dealer, Demotte, from whom it was bought in 1908."
[2] Note of Frances Follin Jones: "The current inventory, in which this is no. 47, notes that it was acquired with "Museum Fund." (Current inventory set up by Prof. Mather to supplant the old one when he baceme Director in 1922/23). Demotte's bill of 1908 (see files) does not help to clarify the matter. Marquand's "day book" notes the acquisition in March, 1908. There are inserted entries for the statue on the stubs for checks #31 and 35 early in 1908 (but no cancelled checks) in the Museum's check-book. Mather published the statue (see bibliography) as Marquand's gift. Mather from time to time mentioned Marquand's hidden generosities, so it could well be that Marquand paid Demotte's bill with his own money and made the entries in the check-book simply as reminders of the transaction. In any event, credit for the gift is certainly appropriate."
- W.B. McCormick, "Princeton Museum, a workshop", International studio 83 (Sept., 1925)., p. 37
- Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 68 (illus.)
- William H. Forsyth, "A late medieval saint of the School of Champagne reexamined," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 52, no. 1 (1993): 26–35., pp. 26–29, figs. 1–5
