Saint Luke the Painter

#saintluke #illumined manuscript

I do wonder if some of these manuscript illustrations of Saint Luke the Evangelist as a Painter may be early "selfies"

There is a tradition that Saint Luke was also a painter and did a portrait of the Virgin Mary.

Note the grinding stone for pigments in the background and the bull, Luke's symbol.

This is not as strange as it seems. Physicians in the 1st century AD were not always surgeons or pharmacists and might have to do drawings of their patients to send to specialists.

Also Physicians who did make up their own medicines for patients might have to grind herbs and minerals themselves and odd as it may seem this century some of the clays and minerals used by painters were also used for medicine or for making tablets and pills. 

Its also an excellent but simple composition with the curves of the blue scarf curving down from the hat and contrasting with the angles of the easel and shelf and other furnishings.