Curatorial Notes
This grieving Madonna likely originally faced another panel depicting a similarly sorrowful Christ crowned with thorns. Portable devotional diptychs such as these were extremely popular in Northern Europe, and workshops like that of artist Dieric Bouts had a system for meeting this demand. A master artist’s design book, a closely guarded tool of the workshop, contained drawings that could be transferred by assistants directly onto the surface of a panel. The assistants could use the same drawing multiple times, as they did for this panel and others of the same subject, allowing for efficient production while maintaining the quality of the master’s design.
Artwork Identification
Title Mater Dolorosa (Sorrowing Virgin)
Title (PT) Mater Dolorosa (Virgem Dolorosa)
Title (ES) Mater Dolorosa (Virgen Dolorosa)
Artist Workshop of Dieric Bouts
Artist Bio Workshop of Dieric Bouts (Netherlandish, 1415–1475)
Date c. 1490
Work Type Painting
Location & Collection
Institution Art Institute of Chicago
Source View Museum Page
License Creative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0
