“And I Shall Give to Thee the Crown of Life”: The Utstein Antependium and the Visual Religious Culture in Early Modern Norway (ca. 1680–1700)
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Ragnhild M. Bø
and
Elisabeth Andersen
Abstract
Stavanger Museum (Norway) preserves an embroidered artefact dating from ca. 1680–1700, known as the Utstein antependium. Depicting six scenes of a woman zealously preparing for the afterlife under divine observation before receiving the Crown of Life, the antependium has puzzled the few scholars who have studied it, as its iconography appears “too Catholic” in post-Reformation Norway. In this article, we argue that the embroidered images and accompanying texts emphasize how a life lived faithfully and charitably on earth would secure one’s place in heaven is also applicable to a Lutheran context. Comparing the antependium’s iconography with previously overlooked votive paintings from the same period, we aim to demonstrate how the maker(s) ingeniously combined image, text, and theological concepts into an unprecedented iconography in textile form in early modern Norway, showing how “she” would receive “the Crown of Life” at the end of time thanks to her spiritually advanced disposition.
© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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- Dossier: Text, Textile, and Theology 1
- Making the Bible a Fashion Accessory in Seventeenth-Century England: Materiality, Market, and the Present-Tense Protestantism of Embroidered Book Covers
- “And I Shall Give to Thee the Crown of Life”: The Utstein Antependium and the Visual Religious Culture in Early Modern Norway (ca. 1680–1700)
- Les ornements liturgiques des Carmes dans les anciens Pays-Bas du XVIIe siècle: un outil au service de leurs thèses
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Religious Women and Liturgy in a Fifteenth-Century Portuguese Codex: Gendering the Reception and Profession Ceremonies in the Dominican Convents
- Memory and the Cloister: Mapping the Architecture of Observant Franciscan Identity in Brescia, 1422–1610
- La Babilonyke Meretrice Romaine: Roots and Character of Guillaume Postel’s Anti-Papalism
- Translating Women’s Silence: Erasmus’ Translation and Paraphrase of 1Corinthians 14:34–35
- Maritime Networks: Priests, Mariners, and Their Landing Places in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
- “The Precious Gifts of Faith, Repentance, and the Feare of God”: Court Confessions and Emotions in Old and New England Witch Trials (ca. 1560–1692)
- Pascal’s Wafer: The Concept of Piety in Blaise Pascal’s Theological Anthropology
- Dossier: Text, Textile, and Theology 1
- Making the Bible a Fashion Accessory in Seventeenth-Century England: Materiality, Market, and the Present-Tense Protestantism of Embroidered Book Covers
- “And I Shall Give to Thee the Crown of Life”: The Utstein Antependium and the Visual Religious Culture in Early Modern Norway (ca. 1680–1700)
- Les ornements liturgiques des Carmes dans les anciens Pays-Bas du XVIIe siècle: un outil au service de leurs thèses
