Roundel with the Allegory of Law and Mercy Cologne, 1551 Stained glass Ø 30 cm Acquired in 1965 from Eberhard Giese, Cologne Cologne, Museum Schnütgen, inv. M 695 18 The name of the person who commissioned the stained glass and the date 1551 can be found in the inscription on the red frame. The name is Johann Helling, probably a barber from Siegen. The house mark at the bottom right of the image also refers to him. The roundel illustrates a theme that emerged during the Reformation, which originated in Wittenberg around 1525 and reflects the basic tenet of Luther’s doctrine. According to this, humanity can only be saved by the grace of God. In the 16th century, this motif was widely used in various genres and was popular with both Protestants and Catholics. In the roundel, a man, symbol of humanity, sits on a tree stump in the centre of the foreground, against a landscape that extends far into the pictorial space. A tree, with foliage only on the right, divides the events of the Old and New Testaments. The man is struggling to decide whether to turn to the law of the Old Testament or to the grace of the New. On the left, the prophet Isaiah represents the Old Covenant in front of Old Testament scenes such as the Fall of Man, the brazen serpent and Moses receiving the Tablets of the Law to Moses. On the right, John the Baptist, the personification of the New Covenant, points to the Lamb of God. Other scenes in the background show the Resurrection and Crucifixion of Christ, the Annunciation to the Shepherds and the Christ Child floating towards Mary. John and Isaiah show humanity the right way by pointing to the side of grace, where the tree flourishes. The composition of the Allegory of Faith can be traced back to a woodcut (Fleck 2010) and a panel painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder from 1529 (Prague, National Gallery, inv. CZ_NGP_010732). Two other roundels with the same subject, painted in Cologne, show the same motif in mirror-image and are dated earlier than the pane commissioned by Johann Helling. One, dated 1538 in an inscription, is now in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (inv. 27.224.1); the other, dated around 1540–1550, is in the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen (inv. KK 0900). Von Euw 1966. – Schnitzler 1968, 101, no. 176b. – Lymant 1982, 245–250, no. 155. – Täube 1998, 64-65, no. 22. – Reinitzer 2006, 289, no. 383. – Täube 2007a, 29, fig. 21. – Fleck 2010, 282–284, no. 275. – Cat. Glanz und Größe 2011, 406. – Woelk/Beer 2018, 389, no. 260 (Iris Metje). Carola Hagnau 86
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