Marriage of a Saint ("The Marriage of Henry VI")

Place of OriginFlanders

Dateabout 1475-1500

Dimensions37 1/4 x 34 7/8 in. (94.6 x 88.6 cm)

Mediumoil on wood panel

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineGift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1926.74

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 19

Label TextOnce owned by the famous English art collector and author Horace Walpole (1717–1797), when this painting entered the Museum's collection it was identified as a 16th-century French image of the marriage of English king Henry VI (ruled 1422–61). When a halo was discovered around the groom's head during a cleaning of the painting, the identification of the subject was changed to the marriage of a male saint; which saint specifically has not yet been determined. Research on costume and painting techniques, as well as an examination of the wood, suggest the panel was painted in late 15th-century Flanders (modern Belgium).Published ReferencesWalpole, H., Anecdotes of Painting in England, Twickenham, 1762, I, repr. pp. 34-35 (engraving).

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art News, no. 48, March 1926, repr.

Toledo Museum of Art Children's Museum News, no. 10, March 1936, repr.

Godwin, Blake-More, Catalogue of European Paintings, Toledo, 1939, p. 76, repr. p. 77.

Lewis, W., Horace Walpole, Washington, 1960, p. 122, no. 30.

Wilenski, R., Flemish Painters, 1430-1830, New York, 1960, I, p. 670, II, pl. 147.

Frégnas, Claude, "Horace Walpole et ses collections a Strawberry Hill," Plasir De France, no. 370, Sept. 1969, p. 52, repr.

Strong, R., Tudor and Jacobean Portraits, London, 1969, I, p. 148.

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, p. 59, pl. 77.

Brownell, Morris R., The Prime Minister of Taste: a Portrait of Horace Walpole, New Haven, Yale, 2001, pp. 98-101, 113, fig. 35, p. 99.

Benelli, Stefano, La Stoffa del XV Secolo, Nella Capsella di Maso di Bartolomeo, Florence, AION, 2011. (repr) fig. 17.

Exhibition HistoryLondon, Royal Academy, Art of the Middle Ages, 1861.

London, South Kensington Museum, Exhibition of National Portraits, 1866, no. 16, and appendix, p. 194 (as Marriage of the Virgin and St. Joseph, Flemish, ca. 1500).

Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art, The Unseen Art of TMA: What's in the Vaults and Why?, September 12, 2004-January 2, 2005 (no catalogue or checklist).

New Haven, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University; New Haven, Yale Center for British Art; London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill, October 2009-July 2010, no. 99, pp. 25, 40, 296, fig. 147 (col.), p. 128. (Note: Lewis Walpole Library was a co-organizer, not an exhibitor)