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This is Das Paradiesgärtleina, a superb gothic panel painting created in 1410 by an unknown German artist known only as the “Upper Rhenish Master”. Various Saints are oriented around Baby Jesus in a lovely walled garden. The Virgin Mary is at the top left reading a book. To her left Saint Dorothy plucks cherries (then, as now, symbolic of purity) from a stylized cherry tree. Saint Barbara draws clear water from a font, as Saint Catherine helps Baby Jesus play a psalter. To the right St. George sits on the grass with a small dragon dead beside him. He is earnestly talking to the Archangel Michael who has a black demon chained at his feet. St. Oswald, leaning on a tree trunk, seems almost to serve as St. George’s squire. It has been surmised that this painting might depict a knight (in the guise of St. George) entering into heaven.
The real delight of the painting lies in its lovely details. This painting carefully and individually depicts over 27 plants, 12 species of bird, and two insects. Very few paintings depict nature with such precision.
Here is a list of the identified plants:
Aquilegia
Veronica
Strawberry
Alchemilla
Daisy
Wallflower
Vinca
Cherry
Clover
Lily
Snowflake
Lily of the Valley
Malva
Oxeye daisy
Dianthus
Paeonia
Rose
Primula veris
Iris
Mustard
Red deadnettle
Violet
Plantago
Chrysanthemum
Aster
Hypericum
Matthiola
Here is a list of the birds:
Common Kingfisher
Great Tit
Eurasian Bullfinch
Golden Oriole
Chaffinch
European Robin
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Bohemian Waxwing
European Goldfinch
Long-tailed Tit
Blue Tit
Hoopoe
The work is painted in a tradition of Maria im Rosenhag (Mary in the rose bower), but the Upper Rhenish master has made the convention his own by presenting a garden where virtue and joy, personified by the holy family and the saints, exert easy control over the natural and the supernatural alike.
ferrebeekeeper 