The Mass of Saint Gregory (1511): Art, History and Details

The Mass of Saint Gregory (1511) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Hans Baldung (German, 1484/85–1545).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Saint Gregory was a late 6th-century pope and one of the fathers of the early Roman Church. This painting depicts the popular legend in which Gregory once overheard an onlooker express doubts about Christ’s actual presence at the altar during mass. In response, the saint’s immense faith was rewarded by a vision of Christ surrounded by the instruments and symbols of his passion. Saint Gregory, vested in his chasuble, kneels in the center, flanked by priests who share his amazement. This painting was part of an altarpiece commissioned by Erhard Künig, a member of a charitable lay order for a monastery near Strassburg. Künig stands at the far right wearing a Maltese cross. The two wings of the altar, showing respectively Saint John the Evangelist and Saint John the Baptist, are in New York and Washington. Hans Baldung was both a painter and a printmaker and is regarded as one of the most gifted students of Albrecht Dürer.

Object facts

• Title: The Mass of Saint Gregory
• Date: 1511
• Creator attribution: Hans Baldung (German, 1484/85–1545)
• Culture: Germany, Strassburg, 16th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil and tempera on wood
• Dimensions: Framed: 126 x 142.5 x 8.5 cm (49 5/8 x 56 1/8 x 3 3/8 in.); Unframed: 89.2 x 125 cm (35 1/8 x 49 3/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Renaissance
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1952.112

A detail from the museum

Saint Gregory was a 6th-century pope and one of the fathers of the early Roman church. The artist, Hans Baldung, chose to depict the historical legend of Gregory's vision in a scene reminiscent of his own time period, 900 years after this pope actually lived.

Collection credit

Gift of the Hanna Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry. "'Mass of St. Gregory' by Hans Baldung Grien." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 39, no. 7 (September 1952): 184-187.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Francis, Henry. "The Stag Hunt." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 46, no. 9 (November 1959): 198-205.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.