The Mass of Saint Gregory

Download2048 × 1466 px View on a wall Edit

Artist: Hans Baldung Grien (German, 1480–1545)
Medium: Oil and tempera on wood
Size: Unframed: 89.2 x 125 cm (35 1/8 x 49 3/16 in.)
Culture: Germany, Strassburg, 16th century
Museum: Cleveland Museum of Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

Saint Gregory was a late 6th-century pope and one of the fathers of the early Roman Church. This painting depicts the popular legend in which Gregory once overheard an onlooker express doubts about Christ’s actual presence at the altar during mass. In response, the saint’s immense faith was rewarded by a vision of Christ surrounded by the instruments and symbols of his passion. Saint Gregory, vested in his chasuble, kneels in the center, flanked by priests who share his amazement.

This painting was part of an altarpiece commissioned by Erhard Künig, a member of a charitable lay order for a monastery near Strassburg. Künig stands at the far right wearing a Maltese cross. The two wings of the altar, showing respectively Saint John the Evangelist and Saint John the Baptist, are in New York and Washington. Hans Baldung was both a painter and a printmaker and is regarded as one of the most gifted students of Albrecht Dürer.