medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
There are of course winged female personifications other than Victory. Later medieval instances of the Virtues -- thought of as feminine thanks to the grammatical gender of their names in Latin and in other tongues --, winged and looking a lot like angels (a choice surely made easier by the existence of the angelic order of Virtues), are not uncommon, e.g. at top in Andrea da Firenze's later thirteenth-century Allegory of the Church Triumphant (Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas) in the Spanish Chapel of Florence's Sta Maria Novella:
http://www.wga.hu/art/a/andrea/firenze/spanish/3west.jpg
http://www.wga.hu/art/a/andrea/firenze/spanish/3west1.jpg
or Humility and Charity (at top left and top right) in Giovanni del Biondo's later thirteenth-century panel painting in the cathedral of Florence of San Zanobi enthroned treading on the vices Pride and Cruelty:
http://tinyurl.com/oygk77b
or the virtues on these earlier fifteenth-century caskets from the workshop of the Embriachi:
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O349204/casket-workshop-of-the/
http://tinyurl.com/oulycge
http://tinyurl.com/nboc8go
Winged virtues are fairly commonplace in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English verse.
But in this case I think it much more likely that the figure in question is Fama (in a good sense, of course), also imagined in antiquity as winged. Compare this early sixteenth-century Flemish tapestry, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, of Fame triumphing over Death (here represented by the three Fates):
http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/230011
or, equally Petrarchan in inspiration, this later sixteenth-century engraving of a not so angelic-appearing Fama triumphing over Death:
http://tinyurl.com/oy8yzao
or Domenico Guidi's later seventeenth-century monument for cardinal Lorenzo Imperiali (d. 1673) in Rome's chiesa di Sant'Agostino, with Fame opening the cardinal's coffin to let his spirit escape Time and Death:
http://www.romainteractive.com/immagini/bernini/guidi/agostino/01.jpg
http://www.romeartlover.it/Mori13.jpg
Some views of the Dutton monument in Sherborne church:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8451/7970325730_45f986bab6_z.jpg
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7140/7467602798_bfe036897e_b.jpg
Westmacott's son, Richard II, sculpted a somewhat comparable image of Fame taking charge of a deceased subject: the monument in St Paul's for Admiral Lord Collingwood:
http://tinyurl.com/oj2oom3
https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3649/3310159456_69fc6b216b_b.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/pvj39dz
The river is presumably the Thames. Given the venue, it's unlikely to be the Tyne. And it's certainly not the Wansbeck (Collingwood's home from 1791 onward was in Morpeth).
Best,
John Dillon
On 02/02/15, James Bugslag wrote:
>
> I believe someone already mentioned an allegorical alternative, and that actually fits with one of the classical "models" for the Christian image of an angel, namely a winged personification of Victory, which, in distinction to angels per se, was usually female. This would also fit both the neo-classically inclined tastes of the 18th century, and the immediate context, i.e. victory over death. Winged female victory figures, in fact, often figured in Roman funerary imagery. Much more recent is the skeleton used as a personification of death, which dates back only to the "macabre" 14th or 15th century. The topos of trampling to signify victory, however, can probably be traced back more or less directly to Prudentius' Psychomachia.
> Cheers,
> Jim
>
> ________________________________________
> From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of John Briggs [[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: February 2, 2015 9:49 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [M-R] Female Angels?
>
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> I apologise in advance that this is not medieval, but it does relate
> to the perennial question "When did angels become female?" (My
> provisional answer is in the 19th century, but after the
> Pre-Raphaelites.) It is usually assumed that angels are sexless (or at
> least pre-pubertal) and male-gendered. I am therefore puzzled by a
> marble monument in Sherborne church, Gloucestershire, to James Lenox
> Dutton (d.1776) and his wife, sculpted by Richard Westmacott the Elder
> in 1791, where a winged female figure is treading (possibly
> inadvertently) on an angry-looking skeleton in front of an urn and a
> bas-relief medallion depicting the deceased. This is usually described
> as "An Angel trampling on Death" - but the figure has one breast
> exposed, which is rather unangelic, and if male would indicate
> gynecomastia. I think the figure must be an allegorical
> personification, but can't decide what is depicted. Could it be Fame,
> Victory, History, Life or Love?
> --
> John Briggs
>
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