Gallery Exhibition

Artist unknown (Spanish) Saint Lawrence, ca. 1450-1480 Oil with gilt on panel, 63 ½ x 26 in

In conjunction with the University’s Sesquicentennial, the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery presented an exhibition of paintings, drawings, and other art objects and artifacts from the 7,000-piece Permanent Collection in spring 2006.  Featured was this 15th-century Gothic panel painting of the figure of Saint Lawrence with the gridiron upon which legend has it that he was martyred.  Recently conserved by Montserrat Le Mense at the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, the painting was presented to the University in 1907 by Frederic Everest Gunnison, son of Almon Gunnison, University president at that time and part of a five-generation Laurentian family.  According to Le Mense, the painting originally hung in a Franciscan monastery, La Rabida, in Palos de la Frontera, a southern Spanish port town from which Christopher Columbus sailed in 1492.  Lawrence, or Lorenzo, was a Spanish monk of the 3rd century; he was reportedly executed for mocking the orders of a public official, and was later beatified.