Head of a saint knight Germany or Netherlands, 1st half of the 16th cent. Stained glass 25 x 25.5 cm Kyiv, Khanenko Museum, inv. 132 БР МХ 15 The origin and original purpose of the life-size, haloed male head with a visored helmet and aventail collar, detached from its compositional context, cannot be clearly defined. The martial costume, in combination with the halo and the youthful appearance of the subject, most likely indicate the remains of a figure of a knight saint, possibly St. George. The size and the dynamic three-quarter view of the head also suggest that this could be either a fragment of a largeformat scene from the saint’s life, or a representation of St. George (?) as a patron saint next to his protégé in the donor zone of a stained-glass window. There are numerous examples of both in early 16th-century stained glass, especially on the Lower Rhine and in the Netherlands. The execution of the drawing on the renewed piece of glass at the back of the head shows an expert stippling technique using a wet half-tone with fine hatching in the shadow areas and strong contour lines on the eyebrows and bridge of the nose. The light reflections on the upper lip, the eyelids and the helmet, which were subsequently wiped out or erased with a needle, are further accents of modelling. The silver staining on the reverse of the pane accentuates the profile. In the age of printmaking, however, this ingenious combination of negative and positive techniques does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the artist’s origins. Whether in the German-speaking Rhineland, Flanders or Brabant, glass painters were equally adept at the artistic skills shown here and at the full range of graphic techniques. Unpublished. Elena Kosina 78
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