Images: Städel Museum
Clavis number: ECMA 157
Other descriptors: none
Inventory number: 988–994
Location: Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Category: paintings
Related literature: Life and Martyrdom of Stephen
Featured characters and locations: Antiochus (father of Stephen), Julian (bishop), Paul (apostle), Perpetua (mother of Stephen), Stephen (martyr).
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: paint on poplar wood
Size: each 69 × 59 cm except for two, which are 74 × 59 cm
Images: the seven images were created for an altarpiece and form a U-shaped pattern around a central image of the saint, which is now missing. All images (save on) derive from the Life and Martyrdom of Stephen.
1. Satan abducts the infant Stephen and replaces him with a demon.
2. Bishop Julian discovers Stephen who is being nursed by a deer.
3. Stephen destroys pagan idols. This scene is not found in the known recensions of the text but presumably occurs during his preaching journeys in Cyrne, Cilicia, Alexandria, and Asia.
4. Stephen takes his leave of bishop Julian.
5. Stephen returns home and destroys the demon with fire.
6. Stephen debates in Jerusalem.
7. Stephen is stoned outside the city by a mob; Jesus descends to take Stephen’s soul; Paul stands with the mob holding coats.
Date and Provenance: created by Martino di Bartolomeo (ca. 1370–1434/1435), perhaps for the church of Sant’Agostino in Siena.
2. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berenson. Bernard. “Notes on Tuscan Painters of the Trecento in the Städel Institut at Frankfurt.” Städel-Jahrbuch 5 (1926): 3–29 (pp. 24–25, pls. IX a–d, Xa–b).
Gaiffier, Baudouin de. “Le diable voleur d’enfants. À propos de la naissance des saints Étienne, Laurent et Barthélemy.” Pages 169–93 in Baudouin de Gaiffier, Études critiques d’hagiographie et d’iconologie. Subsidia Hagiographica 43. Bruxelles, Société des Bollandistes, 1967 (pp. 171–72, figs. 1–7).
Hiller Von Gaertringen, Rudolf. “Seven Scenes of the Life of Saint Stephen by Martino Di Bartolomeo in Frankfurt: A Proposal for Their Provenance, Function, and Relationship to Simone Martini’s Beato Agostino Novello Monument.” Pages 315–40 in Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento. Edited by Victor M. Schmidt. Studies in History of Art 61. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.
Kaftal, George. “The Fabulous Life of a Saint.” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 17 (1973): 295–300.
__________. Iconography of the Saints in Tuscan Painting. Florence: Sansoni, 1952 (col. 953).
Sawyer, Rose A. The Medieval Changeling: Health, Childcare, and the Family Unit. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2023 (images, pp. 162–65; discussion, p. 189).
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“Martino di Bartolomeo.” Wikipedia.
Entry created by Tony Burke, York University, 13 April 2024.