拍品專文
The present painting depicts the legendary saint who, with eleven thousand maiden companions, died in a massacre at Cologne on returning from a pilgrimage to Rome at some unknown date early in the Christian era. The story appeared in several versions during the Middle Ages, including the Golden Legend, and narrative scenes, often in series, occur frequently in late medieval and Renaissance art, especially in Germany and Italy.
The father of Ursula, a Christian king of Brittany, is here shown receiving ambassadors from a pagan king of England to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage to his son Conon. Ursula consented on the conditions - which she fully expected to be refused - that her future betrothed be baptized a Christian and accompany her on a pilgrimage to Rome, and that she be provided on her journey with ten virgin companions, she and they each to have one thousand attendants, likewise, virgins. The ambassadors here present her answer to the English king and his son, and the couple take leave of Ursula's father. The coats-of-arms help to identify the scene, the ermine of the Breton court, the three lions passant of the English.
The father of Ursula, a Christian king of Brittany, is here shown receiving ambassadors from a pagan king of England to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage to his son Conon. Ursula consented on the conditions - which she fully expected to be refused - that her future betrothed be baptized a Christian and accompany her on a pilgrimage to Rome, and that she be provided on her journey with ten virgin companions, she and they each to have one thousand attendants, likewise, virgins. The ambassadors here present her answer to the English king and his son, and the couple take leave of Ursula's father. The coats-of-arms help to identify the scene, the ermine of the Breton court, the three lions passant of the English.