
Not on display
- Artist
- Philip Hermogenes Calderon 1833–1898
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 1530 × 2134 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1891
- Reference
- N01573
Display caption
Elizabeth of Hungary (1207-1231) was the wife of Lewis, Landgrave of Thuringia. After his death in 1227 during one of the Crusades, she entered a convent and devoted herself to good works. Before becoming a nun, she passed through a spiritual crisis, torn by the need to renounce the world, and therefore her children, in order to fulfil her desire to serve God. Pressed by a domineering monk, Conrad, whose natural affections had been starved by celibacy, Elizabeth finally vowed that 'naked and barefoot' she would follow her 'naked Lord'. Calderon's picture shows this moment of self-abasement.
Calderon took his subject from a play by Charles Kingsley, 'The Saint's Tragedy', first published in 1848. It was based on fact.
Gallery label, September 1998
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.
Explore
- architecture(41,309)
-
- periods and styles(5,203)
-
- medieval(2,331)
- religious and ceremonial(1,733)
- actions: postures and motions(9,094)
-
- kneeling(505)
- looking / watching(580)
- Conrad(1)
- female(1,663)
- Saints(237)
- prayer(103)
- religious(412)
-
- friar / monk(79)
- nun(41)
You might like
-
Sir John Everett Millais, Bt Mercy: St Bartholomew’s Day, 1572
1886 -
John Pettie The Vigil
exhibited 1884 -
Alphonse Legros Femmes en Prière
1888 -
Sir Edward Poynter A Visit to Aesculapius
1880 -
George Frederic Watts The All-Pervading
1887–90 -
John William Waterhouse Saint Eulalia
exhibited 1885 -
George Frederic Watts Mammon
1884–5 -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt The Temple of Love
date not known -
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid
1884 -
Sir Charles Holroyd Death of Torrigiano
exhibited 1886 -
Frederic, Lord Leighton The Bath of Psyche
exhibited 1890 -
George Adolphus Storey My Mother
1874 -
George Frederic Watts ‘For he had great possessions’
1894 -
George Dunlop Leslie Kept in School
1876 -
George Adolphus Storey My Father
1868