Mass of Saint Gregory

A subject with a fixed name and a fixed cast

The Mass of Saint Gregory is not a scene invented for this picture; it is a named type, repeated across northern Europe for two centuries, in which a pope celebrating mass is confronted at the altar by the figure of the suffering Christ, surrounded by the instruments of the Passion — nails, a lance, a sponge, a column, a crown. Gregory himself is identified the institutional way, by a papal tiara and a cross-staff, with a dove at his ear from the tradition about his writing. The instruments are the second attribute set, and they belong not to the saint but to the vision he is shown.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1415 and gives the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium as its location. The dimensions are 85 x 73 cm, a modest upright. It is filed under portraiture, Religion and religious cultural heritage, with Northern Renaissance as the style and Flemish as the nationality; the measured colour family is yellow.

The earliest date in the catalogue

No entry here carries a date earlier than 1415, and exactly two carry that one. This is one of them. 4 titles in the collection contain the name Gregory, and more than one saint answers to it — which is the reason the tiara and the dove had to become as fixed as they are.