Ambrogio Lorenzetti (Italian, 1285 - about 1348)
Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, 1319-1347
Gold and tempera on panel , 36.5 x 25 cm (14 3/8 x 9 13/16 in.)
General admission for children 17 years and under is always free
This vertical triangular gold and tempera painting titled Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, is a small portrait of the saint. The background is painted in gold with areas of burnt orange showing through. The haloed figure of Saint Elizabeth is standing and holding a basket of small red and white flowers with two hands in front of her body. The image is cropped just below the basket. Saint Elizabeth has a white shawl wrapped around her head and over her shoulders, with just her medium-skinned face showing. She wears a grey gown gathered at the waist and a reddish-brown robe. The Saint is facing forward with her head tilted slightly to our left and down. Her gaze is to the left and her expression appears to be solemn.
Early Italian Room
Commentary
Elizabeth (1207–1231), daughter of the king of Hungary, renounced the world to devote herself to caring for the sick and the poor. This painting formed one of the pinnacles (triangular points) of a dismantled altarpiece made for a church in Massa Maritima, Italy. In 1917, Isabella Stewart Gardner received it as a gift from the essayist and poet John Jay Chapman and his wife Elizabeth in memory of his son Victor who was the first American pilot to die in World War I. She placed the painting on an easel before a French chasuble (a priest’s stole) so that the floral pattern of the chasuble echoes the flowers the saint holds in her cloak.