Panels from the High Altar of the Charterhouse of Saint-Honoré, Thuison-les-Abbeville: Saint John the Baptist

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

The Virgin and Child and Saint John the Baptist panels once served as exterior wings for an altarpiece at the Carthusian monastery in Thuison-les-Abbeville, France, formerly part of the Burgundian Netherlands. The figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist appear within shallow stone niches painted to look like the Gothic architecture of a church, with pointed arches and tracery. These enshrined images of Mary and John celebrated the monastery as the site of some of their relics (human remains or objects said to belong to the saints), which were often housed in architectural containers.

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