“Et Prima Vidit”: The Iconography of the Appearance of Christ to His Mother

* This study is dedicated to the late Albert M. Friend, Jr. The writer is most grateful to the large number of individuals whose kindness and generosity made possible its completion. He has tried to mention all those directly concerned with specific references or other information in the relevant footnotes; such mention is not sufficient, however, to indicate the debt he owes Dr. Erwin Panofsky, under whose generous, illuminating (and patient) guidance the study was begun, and has been carried out. Dr. Panofsky supplied the information, as well as the stimulation, which formed the nucleus of the paper, and has continued to assist the writer in the course of its development. In addition, the writer owes a great deal to the generous cooperation of Dr. Henriette Sallmann, who is preparing a study of a slightly different aspect of the subject; the freedom with which she has made her findings available is attested by many citations in the notes which follow. The same is true of Dr. Elisabeth Schürer-von Witzleben, who is preparing the articles on various aspects of the subject for the forthcoming Lexikon der Marienkunde. Miss Dorothy Miner has kindly offered many helpful suggestions in the course of the preparation of the manuscript. Dr. Gertrude Rosenthal and Dr. Cyril Mango have been of great assistance in many ways; but neither they nor any of the others mentioned here should be considered responsible for any of its shortcomings. The writer hopes, on the other hand, that it will not be considered a shortcoming that the study does not attempt to list all known examples of the iconography under examination, but simply the most outstanding or characteristic instances of the general types and phases of its history.

Abstract

THE problem of Roger van der Weyden's Granada-Miraflores Altarpiece has long held a fascination for students of Flemish painting, and has been the subject of a number of penetrating studies, the most recent and definitive being that in a section of Panofsky's Early Netherlandish Painting.¹ Panofsky has here supplied a more comprehensible analysis of the meaning of the triptych as a whole than had hitherto been discerned; as one aspect of this, he has pointed out new facts revealing the central importance of the New York panel² both in the interpretation of this triptych, and within the broader framework of the general development of Northern painting in the fifteenth century.