female, nuns, monasticism, visual arts, devotion, middle ages

It is a well-known fact that female monasteries in the Middle Ages were active and generous commissioners of art. Their specific needs affected the formal repertoire as well as the iconography of the commissioned art works. An example of such iconography in 14th century Bohemia would be, for example, the complete figure of the Suffering Christ with crossed hands held against his chest. This new image and that of the feast of Corpus Christi appeared in Bohemian art by the beginning of the 14th century. It is remarkable that the first representations of this iconography - in the chapel of the Stone Bell House of Prague?s Old Town Square and in the Passional of Abbess Kunigunde - were commissioned by women from the highest social class: Queen Elisabeth of Bohemia (the wife of John of Luxembourg) and Kunigunde, daughter of Bohemian king Ottokar II of Bohemia and abbess of the St. George?s Monastery in Prague.