Oil painting Protestant Reformers

Object number

LDSAL1300

Artist/Designer/Maker

Unknown artist - Artist

Production date

c. 1660

Production place

London

Material

oil paint
canvas (paint canvas)

Dimensions

height: 953mm
width: 1778mm
height (Of Frame): 1050mm
width (Of Frame): 1840mm
depth (Of Frame): 66mm

Location

Burlington House -

Object history note

Discovered in about 1950 rolled in a cupboard in the Society's rooms by John Hopkins, then Assistant Librarian and later the Society's Librarian. No previous record of it has come to light. There were many clerics among the nineteenth-century Fellowship who might have presented it. According to an article by Joke Spaans, 'Faces of the Reformation', the painting is one of many copies after an engraving published by Thomas Jenner, a bookseller in London from 1623-1673. It was widely copied across Europe into the 19th century in print and painting form. The versions with Bishop Ussher (1581-1656) and Cranmer (1489-1556) depicted are apparently versions most likely painted toward the end of the 17th century or beginning of the 18th century. Copies similar to that of the Antiquaries can be found in Yale Divinity School, Lewis Town Hall and Glasgow.

Content description

This allegorical painting shows some of the leading figures of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth-century in an imaginary gathering, centred around Martin Luther. The figures are grouped around a table in front of a burning candle. With the exception of Luther, whose name is across the open book in which he is writing, the names of the individuals are written above their heads or on the table top. LUTHER sits at the centre of the table with an open book on the table top in front of him. Luther is flanked by his contemporaries P. MELANCTON and CALVIN, who turns his back on Luther to address T. BEZA. Along the sides of the table are their predecessors, I. HUS and WICKLIF. The group standing behind the seated figures, starting from the second on the left, are BVLINGER, ZANCHI, KNOX, ZVIGLIVS, P. MIRTER (for Martyr), BVCER, PRAVGE and PERKINS. Below Perkins are two figures with no names. At the far ends are B[ishop USHER to the left and B[ishop] CRANMER to the right.

On the table, to the left of the candle, are the words: THE. CANDEL IS. LIGHTED. In the foreground, four figures try to extinguish the candle, but find that WE CANNOT BLOW. IT. OVT. The foreground figures represent the Roman Catholic Church and consist of a Cardinal, a 'papal bull', a pope and a monk holding a holy water sprinkler.

Oil on canvas painting; allegorical painting showing some of the leading figures of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth-century in an imaginary gathering.