Unmarked

UMP 11826

This brightly painted tile comes from a stove displaying similar artistic and iconographic symbols as the stove tiles at the City Hall in Winterthur, a centre of Swiss stove-making during the Renaissance. The subject of the painting is the Test of Faith:

In a ring of fire called “Mundus”, the human spirit (“Homo”) (“anima”) is tried by fire (“Tribulationes”). A nude lover (“Caro”) holds Cupid and uses tongs (“Cupiditates”) to add coal to the fire. (“Satan”) fans the fire (“Tentationes”).

With an hourglass at his feet, Death (“Finis”) takes to the spirit with a large hammer. Only an angel (“Bonus Angelus”) cools the spirit with water (“Spiritus Sanctus”), causing steam to rise (“Vanitas”). Inscribed in a cartouche above the scene: Wie man das Gold probiert im feühr: / Also der Gläubig ungeheüwr /

Wirt g'fochten an mit creütz und not /

Auch ubel trengt biß auff den todt: /

Doch der wahr Glaub / auff Gott gericht /

Weit uberwindt / scheücht d'marter nicht.

Painting after Christoph Murer’s print Test of Faith. The print comes from Emblemata miscella nova published in Zurich in 1622.

Murer, Christoph, Rordorff, Johann Heinrich: Emblemata miscella nova. Printed by J. Rüdolff Wolffen, 1622, Zurich

l Renaissance