The Death of the Virgin
The original, as its museum records it
Every line above is reproduced from the holding institution’s own catalogue entry, which is linked. Where their title, date or attribution differs from ours, theirs is the one printed here.
The file this print is made from
Sizes
About this painting
Ringed round the bed, the apostles show distress, doubt and human angst for a woman heaven is already taking. Peter, as priest, takes the candle of the dying from Thomas and sets it between her folded hands; overhead Christ appears in an aureole among angels to receive her soul.
No Gospel records this. Van der Goes worked from the apocrypha and the Legenda Aurea, where the apostles are carried to her door by miracle.
Beside John is James the Less, whom that book says resembled Christ in face and body. He is inside the circle. Christ is above it.
Sources: Flemish Art Collection / Musea Brugge, object record 0000.GRO0204.I, 'Dood van Maria', Hugo van der Goes, Groeningemuseum, Bruges. · Musea Brugge, 'Restoration of The Death of the Virgin by Hugo van der Goes', research projects. · Flemish Art Collection, 'Hugo van der Goes, Death of the Virgin, Musea Brugge'. · Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, 'The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary' (Caxton translation); transcription at Christian Iconography, also in Fordham's Medieval Sourcebook, Golden Legend vol. 4. · Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, 'The Life of St James the Less' (Caxton translation); transcription at Christian Iconography. · De Vlaamse Kunstcollectie, Flemish Primitives platform, 'The Dormition', Hugo van der Goes, Groeninge Museum Bruges, accession 0000.GRO0204.I (English record).
Printed on demand. Public-domain masterwork, reproduced from a 9,438 px master of the original. The whole image is printed — never cropped to fit the sheet — so every sheet carries an archival margin, and the dimensions and resolution listed above are the ones you receive.