Ars Adriatica, No. 4, 2014.
Original scientific paper
A Gothic Embroidered Antependium from Zadar, now at Budapest
Silvija Banić
; independent researcher, Zadar, Croatia
Abstract
The Museum of Applied Arts (Iparművészeti Múzeum) at Budapest houses an embroidered Gothic antependium which belonged to the church of St Chrysogonus, which was the seat of the Benedictine Abbey at Zadar. At an unspecified time, the antependium became part of the collection of Zsigmund Bubics, an art historian, collector and the bishop of Košice in present-day Slovakia from 1887 to 1906, and was donated to the Museum of Applied Arts in 1909. It measures 94 by 190 cm. The majority of the antependium’s surface is filled with the figures of saints set beneath three pointed, Gothic arches. The central field is occupied by the enthroned Virgin with the Christ Child, in the left field is St Chrysogonus and in the right St Benedict. In the upper section of the antependium one can see the busts of two saints who might be identified as St Gregory the Pope and St Donatus. Along the lateral edges of this triptych-like antependium are vertical borders, at the centres of which are niches with two small standing female saints who wear crowns (St Scholastica and St Anastasia). To the left of the Virgin’s throne is the figure of a donor depicted kneeling with his hands clasped in prayer, which has unfortunately not been provided with an inscription. It is clear, however, that he is wearing the Benedictine habit with a somewhat over-emphasized hood falling down his back. The Benedictine donor might be identified as one of the abbots of the monastery of St Chrysogonus. It is suggested in the article that this may have been John de Ontiaco (Joannes de Onciache) from the bishopric of Lyon, who was the abbot of the monastery of St Chrysogonus from 1345 to 1377. The author argues that the antependium was produced in a weaving workshop in Venice during the late 1360s or early 1370s, on the basis of comparisons with similar contemporary painted and embroidered artworks. Based on the iconographic programme which was depicted on the antependium, but also on the information found in archival records, the author proposes that the antependium was made for the altar of St Chrysogonus which stood in the north apse of the abbey church. Although it has not been established when the antependium left Zadar, based on the similarities between the crimson satin fabric, which replaced the original surface on which the embroidery was applied, on the antependium from the Church of St Mary at Zadar, and the antependium from the Church of St Chrysogonus, it is stated that both interventions were made in the Benedictine Convent of St Mary at Zadar during a short period of time in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. This is also understood as evidence that at that time the antependium from the Church of St Chrysogonus was still being carefully kept at Zadar.
Keywords
antependium; embroidery; textile; fourteenth century; Church of St Chrysogonus, Zadar; Benedictines; Venice; Budapest
Hrčak ID:
130724
URI
Publication date:
19.12.2014.
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