The Madonna of Graz in a mirror frame
Vincenz Janke, Northern Bohemia, late 18th / early 19th C.
Glass panel painted on reverse in opaque and transparent pigments. Some mirror pieces with old cracks. Frame inset with carved and cut mirror pieces, H 69.5, W 47 cm.
The finely painted reverse glass image of the Virgin floating in the sky that forms the central motif of this work is based on Giovanni Pietro de Pomis' large altarpiece painted for the pilgrimage church of Mariahilf in Graz in 1611. The work was originally housed either in a chapel or side altar and only moved to the main altar in around 1700.
The figures of a beggar and a pilgrim who accompany the Virgin in the original altarpiece are not depicted here. Vincenz Janke took the motif from another context, namely the devotional image in Laaberberg bei Rohr, which was published by the Munich engraver Franz Xaver Jungwirth (1720 - 1790). Janke has surrounded the Virgin with mirror shards opulently decorated with foliate scrolls. The piece was obviously intended for a small private devotional altar.
Literature
Illus. in Steiner, "...denn ich verkünde Euch eine große Freude!" – Die Weihnachtsgeschichte in der Hinterglasmalerei 1550 - 1850, Mittenwald 2008, illus. 41.
Illus. in Steiner, ... eine andere Art von Malerey. Hinterglasgemälde und ihre Vorlagen 1550 - 1850, Berlin-Munich 2012, illus. 138.
Illus. in Kafka/Krámská/Steiner/Trepesch, Vincenz Janke 1769 - 1838 Podmalby na skle / Hinterglasbilder, Liberec 2017, p. 164.
An identical mirror frame, described as "North Bohemian (?)" published in Klein/Krutisch, Schränke und Kommoden 1650 - 1800 im Germanischen Nationalmuseum. Bestandskatalog Teil 1, Nuremberg-Ostfildern 2015, illus. 321 (Dresden, Museum für Sächsische Volkskunst, inv. no. D625).
See also Bleibrunner, Andachtsbilder aus Altbayern, Munich 1971, p. 29.
Exhibitions
2008 - 2009 Geigenbaumuseum Mittenwald.
2012 Schaezlerpalais der Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg.
2017 North Bohemian Museum Liberec.