MASTER of the Legend of Saint Ursula (I)
(active 1480-1500 in Bruges)

St Michael Fighting Demons

1480-1500
Oil on oak panel with integrated frame, 30 x 19,5 cm
Museum Onze-Lieve-Vrouw ter Potterie, Bruges

St Michael does not occupy the highest rank in the angelic choir. In the celestial household, however, as one of the seven archangels, he is the leader of the army of angels fighting the demons. In popular imagination it is his army that scatters and chases into outer darkness the rebellious angels who choose to obey Satan rather than God. Here he is not portrayed as a knight in arms but as a fighting priest in clerical attire. The type may go back to an older representation by Jan van Eyck on which Gerard David later based his St Michael altarpiece in Vienna. The Eyckian shape of the shield could also point this way. At his side kneels a nun of the Potterie convent in Bruges, in the habit of an augustine nun.