Saint Thomas

Anonymous, German, 18th century

18th century · Ink, silk, and painted vellum on a sheet of vellum with a gilt-stamped paper border · Drawings and Prints

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, devotional images composed of cut and reassembled prints elaborately adorned with paint, fabric, and other materials found a ready market throughout Catholic Europe. Vividly colored and multitextured, these works stimulated spiritual devotion through their alluring optical and tactile qualities. Long thought to be the products of amateur practitioners, devotional assemblages were more often professionally made, with dedicated industries concentrated in Antwerp and Southern Germany. These works belong to a well-established practice of altering, combining, and repurposing printed images, and they exhibit a sophisticated handling of materials.

Artist

Anonymous, German, 18th century

Date

18th century

Medium

Ink, silk, and painted vellum on a sheet of vellum with a gilt-stamped paper border

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Mrs. Richard Riddell, 1977