the pz gesture of the lactating goddess Table of contents

Abstract & Preface

poetry by
Adrienne Rich

Chapter I
The hand of "El caballero de la mano al pecho"

Chapter II
Iconographical sources of nursing and nursing gestures in pre-Christian and non-Christian cultures

Chapter III
Iconographical sources of nursing and nursing gestures in Christian cultures

Chapter IV
Breast-feeding forms in the Renaissance

Chapter V
Literary sources of lactating goddesses

Chapter VI
The meaning of the Ostentatio Mammarum
and the pseudo- zygodactylous gesture

Illustrations & Bibliography

Biographical sketch

Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. Between the years 1577 and 1579; Toledo Museum of Art, El Greco of Toledo (1982) p. 259
  2. Gregorio Marañón, El Greco y Toledo, 2nd edition (Madrid 1958) p. 282
  3. Antonia Vallentin, El Greco (London 1954) p. 141-2
  4. "Communication does not consist of the transmission of meaning. Meanings are not transmitted, nor transferable. Only messages are transmittable, and meanings are not in the message, they are in the message-user."--David Berlo, The process of communication (Holt, Rinehart, Winton: New York 1960) p. 175; cited in Dean C. Barnlund, "Toward a meaning-centered philosophy of communication," Journal of Communication (University of Kansas: Lawrence december 1962) vol. XII, no. 4, p. 200
  5. Victor Turner, The forest of symbols: aspects of Ndembu ritual (Cornell University: Ithaca 1967) p. 20
  6. Vallentin, El Greco, p. 142
  7. Julian Gallego, La pintura española (Barcelona 1963) p. 66
  8. Ralph Oppenhejm, Spain in the looking-glass, translated by K. John (McBride: New York 1956) p. 54; Marañon (El Greco y Toledo, p. 283) first cites R. Ferreres: "las actitudes de las manos del Greco reproducen los gestos de los ritos israelitas, especialmente de los sefarditas; y aventura que, incluso muchos de los caballeros retratados por el pintor, fueran judíos secretos, marranos o sinceramente convertidos, pero no de larga fecha."
  9. Marañon, El Greco y Toledo, p. 283, footnote (280)
  10. Francisco Pompey, El arte español
  11. Drawing of E. M. Lilien, 'Der Jüdische Mai, Lieder des Ghetto' (1902); in Milly Heyd, 'Lilien and Beardsley': "To the pure all things are pure,"' Journal of Jewish art (Center for Jewish art of the Hebrew University: Jerusalem 1980) vol. 7, p. 61, fig. 8: "In Lilien's illustration an old orthodox Jew wearing a skullcap. with the Star of David on it replaces Tannhäuser [the character in A. Beardsley's 1896 drawing]. His hands are outstretched and he is looking in to the distance, where the rays emanating from a sun symbolize Zion." Lilien actually "transposed the meaning of Beardsley's illustrations from an individual level to a national one, from the expression of sexual cravings to yearning for Zion." p. 60. The hand gesture itself is also copied directly from Beardsley's drawing, 'The return of Tannhäuser to Venusberg,' in his novel Venus and Tannhäuser (1896). --Heyd, p. 61, fig. 7
  12. Hayim Halevy Donin, To be a Jew (New York 1972) p. 202
  13. Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem 1972) XIII: 1062
  14. Ibid.: "This figure became the device of the kohanim and is often inscribed on their tombstones."
    e.g., the Jewish cemetery in Prague. See also E. M. Lilien drawing, 'Friedhofsnachtingal, Lieder des ghetto' (1902), in Heyd, 'Lilien and Beardsley,' ibid., p. 67, fig. 22
  15. Georges Nataf, Symboles, signes, et marques (Paris 1973) p. 212
  16. A further example of the ease with which the identity of particular symbolic or ethnic gestures are coöpted, thereby creating new and different meanings, relates specifically to the use of the Kohanic blessing as adopted by women "anti-nuclear weapons protesters [who] raised their hands to form an ancient matriarchal sign for strength and power ..." photograph by Greta Pratt, article "Campers' goal: stop. nuclear weapons," Minnesota Daily (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis/St. Paul, monday,
    3 october 1983) vol. 85, no. 38; p. 5
  17. Leonard Nimoy, I am not Spock (Celestial Arts: Milbrae, California 1975) p. 104-5: "The story was rich in Vulcan ritual and was the first time the Vulcan hand salute was used. This consisted of holding the hand up, palm outward, the thumb outstretched with a separation between the second and third fingers. ... At this point I felt that there was an opportunity to establish something a little special in the way of a Vulcan greeting. The greeting that I chose came from my Orthodox Jewish background. The hand symbol is that used by the Kohanim, who are the priests of the Hebrews, who bless the congregation during the High Holiday services. Saying, "May the Lord turn his countenance unto you and give you peace, etc." While doing so they extend both hands out toward the congregation in the configuration that I described. There are many interpretations of this symbol but the one which seems most obvious is that the hand, when held in that shape, forms the shape of the hebrew letter Shin. This is the first letter in the word Shadai, which is the name of the Almighty. Therefore, the Kohanim are using this symbol of the Almighty's name in blessing the congregation. This then became the appropriate exchange when Vulcans were to greet on Star Trek in the future. It has also been picked up. by thousands of fans and I am greeted with the Vulcan hand salute wherever I travel."
  18. I. Cassou, El Greco (1934) p. 105; cited in Camón Aznar, Domínico Greco (Espasa-Calpe: Madrid 1950), p. 1092-93. translation: "This gesture, repeated so frequently, is that which Saint Ignatius of Loyola recommends. ... Better than fists to the chin or fingers to the temple, this serene gesture of calmness denounces all the agitation of the life within, while at the same time that it subdues and imposes itself with an irresistible force over all the secrets of the conscience."
  19. Antonina Vallentin, El Greco ibidem
  20. Veronica de Osa, The mystic finger symbol of El Greco (London 1956) p. 202-3
  21. Louis J. Puhl, S.J., The spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius: based on studies in the language of the autograph (Loyola University: Chicago 1951) p. 16 "27. Four additional directions. These are to serve as a help. to more ready removal of the particular sin or fault. I. Every time one falls into the particular sin or fault, let him place his hand upon his breast, and be sorry for having fallen. He can do this even in the presence of many others without their perceiving what he is doing." in The spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, translated by Anthony Mottola (New York 1964) p. 49: "First week. Four additional directions. 1. Each time that one falls into the particular sin or defect, he should place his hand on his breast, repenting that he has fallen. This can be done even in the presence of many people without their noticing it."; Camón Aznar, Domínico Greco, p. 1093: "Cada vez que caemos en el pecado, en llevar la mano al pecho, excitándonos interiormente en el dolor."
  22. Bulletin of the Associates in Fine Arts at Yale University, vol. 23, september 1957, no. 3; portrait of Ezra Stiles by Samuel King; in Dillenberger and Taylor, The hand and the spirit: religious art in America (Berkeley 1972) p. 46
  23. Puhl, The spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius: based on studies in the language of the autograph, p. 16
  24. The Holy Bible ---New International Version (Hodder and Stoughton: London 1982) p. 990
  25. de Osa, The mystic finger symbol of El Greco, p. 203
  26. Vallentin, El Greco, p. 142
  27. Frank Rutter, El Greco (London 1930) p. 83
  28. José Camón Aznar, Domínico Greco, p. 1089
  29. Willumsen, La Jeunesse, p. 498, in Camón Aznar, ibid., p. 1093
  30. Cassou, El Greco , p. 105, in Camón Aznar, ibid., p. 1093
  31. Article on "El Greco," Encyclopedia Britannica 1975 edition
  32. Elizabeth du Gué Trapier, El Greco: early years at Toledo 1576-1586 (New York 1958) p. 13
  33. Samia Temtamy and Victor McKusick, The genetics of hand malformations (Alan R. Liss: New York 1978) p. 301-07; cf. Victor McKusick, Mendelian inheritance in man: catalogs of autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, and X-linked phenotypes (Johns Hopkins: Baltimore 1966/1986) p. 695-6; Josef Warkany, Congenital malformations: notes and comments (Chicago 1971) p. 971-3; and Günter M. Lösch, Syndaktylien: Anatomie, Entwicklung, therapautische Aspekte (Stuttgart 1970) p. 5-8
  34. Verschuer (1961) in Temtamy and McKusick, ibid., p. 301
  35. Leslie Brainer Arey, Developmental anatomy: a textbook and laboratory manual of embryology (Saunders: Philadelphia 1974) 7th edition, p. 212, fig. 169. F, "syndactyly" (figure rotated 180°): "The bony fusion or fleshy webbing of digits (syndactyly); F) favors the union of the middle and third digits." "Zygodactyly" is not mentioned. McKusick, in Mendelian inheritance in man: catalogs of autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, and X-linked phenotypes, ibid., classifies zygodactyly as "Syndactyly, Type 1"; p. 695.
  36. See, for example, the "Portrait d'un chevalier Santiago de la maison Leiva," M. Legendre and A. Hartmann, Domenico Theotocopouli dit El Greco, (Hyperion: Paris 1937) p. 36
  37. A partial list of titles of El Greco's paintings in which the caballero's hand gesture appears, including approximate date, present location; and name of figure gesturing:
    Adoration of the shepherds (1577-79) Santander; Mary
    Annunciation (1596-1600) Madrid; center angel
    Assumption of the Virgin (1577-79) Chicago; Mary, Peter (?)
    Christ bearing the cross (1585-90) New York; Jesus
    Christ on the cross with the two Marys and Saint John (1588) Athens; St. John
    Coronation of the Virgin with saints (1591-92) Toledo; Saint Francis
    Disrobing of Christ/the Expolio (1579/1587) Toledo (and all other versions); Jesus
    Gentleman with his hand on his chest (1577-79) Madrid; unknown Spaniard
    Holy family (1580-85) New York; Mary
    Holy family with Saint Anne (1590-95) Toledo; Mary
    Madonna and child (1604-08) Madrid; Mary
    Madonna and child with Sts Agnes and Marina (1597) Washington DC; Mary, angel, and St. Agnes
    Madonna suckling the child (1605-10) Madrid; Mary
    Mary Magdalen in penitence (1578-80) Budapest; Mary Magdalen
    Mary Magdalen in penitence (1585-90) Sitges; Mary Magdalen
    Mary Magdalen in penitence (1590-95) Barcelona; Mary Magdalen
    Resurrection (1577-79) Toledo; don Diego de Castilla
    Saint Andrew and Saint Francis (1590-95) Madrid; Saint Francis
    Saint Catherine (unkown) Paris, Sitges; Saint Catherine
    Saint Dominic (1598) Toledo; Saint Dominic
    Saint Francis standing in meditation (1580-85) Omaha; Saint Francis
    Saint Francis standing in meditation (1585-90) Barcelona; Saint Francis
    Saint Francis kneeling in meditation (1595-1600) San Francisco; Saint Francis
    Saint Ildefonso (1608) Illescas; Saint Ildefonso
    Saint James the Elder (1586-97?) New York, Paris; Saint James
    Saint John the evangelist and Saint Francis (1604) Madrid; Saint Francis
    Saint Phillip. (1604-09) Toledo; Saint Phillip
    Vision of Saint Dominic or Apparition of the Virgin (1597-1603) St Louis; Saint Dominic
  38. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota; also Titian's «Magdalen» in the Pitti Gallery of Florence
  39. Real Colegio del Corpus Christi, Valencia; in José Camón Aznar, La pintura española del siglo XVI, Summa artis: historia general del arte (Espasa-Calpe: Madrid 1970) vol. 24, p. 45, fig. 31; also the gesture of Mary reaching for the child Jesus in «Santa Ana, la Virgen, Santa Isabel, San Juan Bautista y Jesús Niño» by Yáñez de Almedina, p. 47, fig. 33
  40. Jean Roger Rivière, El arte de la India; Summa artis - Historia general del arte (Espasa-Calpe: Madrid 1978) vol. 19, p. 60-61; E. Dale Saunders, Mudra: a study of symbolic gestures in Japanese Buddhist sculpture (Bollingen-Pantheon: New York 1960)
  41. John Napier, Hands (Pantheon: New York 1980) p. 32: "Ectrodactyly is one of the strange conventions of cartoonists for whom the hand consists of three or four digits only. ..."
  42. Frederic Wood Jones, The principles of anatomy as seen in the hand (Williams & Wilkins: Baltimore 1942) p. 268-9
  43. Cf. József Gát, The technique of piano playing (Collet's: London; Corvina: Budapest 1965) p. 133, and p. 262, figs. 96 -97
  44. José Camón Aznar, La pintura española del siglo XVI, Summa artis: historia general del arte (Espasa-Calpe: Madrid 1970) vol. XXIV, p. 384, fig. 343; Manuel Trens, María: iconografía de la Virgen en el arte español (Madrid 1947) p. 479
  45. Trens, ibid (1947) p. 376; Manuel Trens, Santa María: vida y leyenda de la Virgen a través del arte español (Barcelona 1954) fig. 103
  46. August L. Mayer, Murillo - des Meisters Gemälde (Stuttgart 1913) p. 60
  47. See Hera-Herakles myth below, Chapter V: Literary sources of lactating goddesses, Greek culture.
  48. See Marija Gimbutas, Goddesses and gods of Old Europe 6500-3500 b.c. (California 1982) re. pre- and proto-Indo-european cultures
  49. See Marija Gimbutas, ibid., p. 142: "In contrast to the Indo-Europeans, to whom Earth was the Great Mother, the Old Europeans created maternal images out of water and air divinities, the Snake and Bird Goddess. A divinity who nurtures the world with moisture, giving rain, the divine food which metaphorically was also understood as mother's milk, naturally became a nurse or mother. Indeed, the terracotta figurines of an anthropomorphic snake of bird holding a baby are encountered at various periods and in many regions of Old Europe, and in Minoan, Cypriote, and Mycenean cultures as well. This is exemplified by the Dimini seated Nurse or Mother, striped like a snake ..."
  50. See Peter Ucko, Anthropomorphic figurines of predynastic Egypt and neolithic Crete with comparative material from the prehistoric Near East and mainland Greece (A. Szmidla: London 1968)
  51. E.g., the Venuses of Willendorf, of Laussel. See André Leroi-Gourhan, Prehistoria del arte occidental (Gustavo Gili: Barcelona 1976) p. 42-44, fig. 52 bis; H.E. Read, The art of sculpture, pl. 26, 27
  52. Herbert Edward Read, The art of sculpture (Pantheon: New York; Bollingen: Princeton 1956) p. 26, 28
  53. National Museum, Belgrade, in Marija Gimbutas, The gods and goddesses of Old Europe, 7000-3500 bc: myths, legends and cult images (London 1974) fig. 194
  54. Athens National Museum, in Dimitriou R. Theochari, Neolithike Ellas (Greece 1973) p. 56; cf. Zervos, Naissance, vol. II: 305, fig. 395; Gimbutas, fig. 96; and André Leroí-Gourhan, La prehistoria, translated by Ricardo Martín (Labor: Barcelona 1976) p. 92
  55. San Vittorio de Serri, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Caligari, in Erich Neumann, The great mother: an analysis of the archetype, translated by R. Manheim (Bollingen: Princeton 1974) p. 46; cf. Christian Zervos, La civilisation de la Sardaigne du début de l'énéolithique a la fin de la période nouragique, IIe millénaire ­ Ve siecle avant notre ere (Cahiers d'art: Paris 1954) pl. 455
  56. Karatepe, in Akurgal, pl. 150, p. 296; see also James Pritchard, editor, The ancient Near East: supplementary texts and pictures relating to the Old Testament (Princeton University: Princeton 1969) figs. 829, 798; William Stevenson Smith, Interconnections in the ancient Near East: a study of the relationships between the arts of Egypt, the Aegean, and western Asia (Yale: New Haven, CT 1965) p. 53, figs, 57, 82.
  57. "Lovers embracing on bed, clay plaque, Mesopotamia, Isin-Larsa-Old Babylonian period, c. 2000-1600 bc. Baked clay. Basel, Erlenmeyer Collection." in Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, Inanna, queen of heaven and earth (New York 1983) p. 43 187
  58. Bagdad, Iraq Museum, in André Parrot, Sumer (France 1960/ Madrid 1981) fig. 77, p. 59/ fig. 94, p. 100; see also Balaji Mundkur, The cult of the serpent: an interdisciplinary survey of its manifestations and origins (Albany, NY 1983) fig. 86a, b, p. 185-188
  59. Louvre, in Parrot, ibid., fig. 295
  60. Ankara, Archeological Museum, in Kurt Bittel, Los Hititas (Paris 1976, Madrid 1976) fig. 7, p. 24, 49; cf. Ekrem Akurgal, The art of the Hittites (London 1962) pl. 23
  61. Staatliche Museen, Berlin, in Ilse Seibert, Woman in ancient Near East (Leipzig, DDR 1974); cf. R. Harris, "The Nadítu woman," in Studies presented to A. Leo Oppenheim (Chicago 1964); and Erich Neumann, The great mother: an analysis of the archetype, translated by R. Manheim (Bollingen: Princeton 1974) p. 37
  62. Maleki Collection, Teheran; in Roman Ghirshman, Perse, proto-iraniens, Médes, Achéménides (Paris 1963) fig. 19
  63. Beirut, National Museum; in André Parrot, Chehab, Moscati, Les Pheniciens (Paris 1975) fig. 50, p. 57
  64. "L'allaitement d'éternité," from Saqqara, the necropolis of Memphis, end of the Vth dynasty (ca 2400) limetstone. Egyptian Museum, Cairo; from Aldred, Cenival, et al., Le temps des pyramides:
    le monde égyptien (Paris 1978)
  65. C.J. Bleeker, Hathor and Thoth: two key figures of the ancient Egyptian religion (E.J. Brill: Leiden 1973)
    p. 75
  66. Henri Frankfort, Kingship. and the gods: a study of ancient Near Eastern religion as the integration of society and nature (University of Chicago: Chicago 1948) p. 292, 404 note 45
  67. Victor Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans: corpus des monuments gréco-romains d'Isis allaitant Harpocrate (E.J. Brill: the Netherlands 1973) pl. I, fig. 1: Temple de Louxor [XVIII dynasty]
  68. Temple of queen Hatchepsut, Dair al-Bahri, Egypt. wall painting/engraving in the chamber of the sanctuary of Hathor; in K. Lange, et al., L'Egypte (München 1967; Paris 1968) fig. 131
  69. Egyptian Museum, Cairo; post card, "King Amenhotep. II beneath the Hathor cow - 1450 bc." also see V. Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans ... (Leiden 1973), p. 3: "Dans le temple d'Hatchepsout (XVIIIe dynastie) à Deir-el-Bahari, la vache Hathor allaite le jeune prince pour lui donner la vie, la durabilité et la santé. Au moment de son courounement, le jeune prince tète aussi la vache céleste: «Tu es mon fils que j'ai élevé avec le lait (au pluriel en égyptien) qui est en moi. Ce lait (au pluriel) est entre en toi comme la vie.»
  70. V. Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans, pl. III, figs. 3, 4: Mammisi de Dendara
  71. Frontispiece, Steffen Wenig, The woman in Egyptian art, translated by B. Fischer (New York 1969)
  72. "La déese Anouket allaite le roi" Temple du roe Ramsès II, Bêt el-Wali, in K. Lange, L'Egypte (München 1967, Paris 1968) fig. 235; "L'allaitement d'éternité," fin Ve dyn. (vers 2400), Aldred, Cenival, et al., Le temps des pyramides (Paris 1978) fig. 168; "Isis nursing feeding her son Horus, ..."
    on a mammisi (birth house) built by the Roman emperor Augustus (27 bce - 14 ce),
    Encyclopedia Britannica, "Sculpture" (Chicago 1975) vol. 20, plate 13, fig. 1
  73. Stele, 'Isis allaitant Horus, auquel est implicitement assimilé le pharaon Psammétique (XXVIe dyn.). Provenance Giza (Princeton University, The Art Museum);' in Le monde de la Bible (Paris, auôt-octobre 1986, #45) p. 14, illus. 19
  74. Isis suckling her son Harpocrates. Coptic fresco from House B50, Karanis, a Roman town in the northeast Fayum, in Egypt, ca. 380 ce; in Tran Tam Tinh, pl. XXXI, fig. 48; see also A.E.R. Boak and E.E. Peterson, Karanis, fig. 49
  75. Figurine of two women and a child: one woman on a low stool combs or plaits the hair of the other who is nursing the infant at her right breast with her right hand; in Steffen Wenig, The woman in Egyptian art, translated by B. Fischer (New York 1969) pl. 26b, p. 47: "Two women with a child. Limestone, h. 6 cm. From Lisht, twelfth dynasty, between 1900 and 1800 bc. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 22.2.35 This little sculpture shows two women, one of which is arranging the other's hair, while the latter nurses her child."
  76. Thèbes (?), Detail de pot à pharmacie en forme de nourrice tenant un enfant. XVIIIe dyn. [1552-1306] Terre cuit vernissée. Paris, Musée du Louvre [Salle C, 240]; from Aldred, Cenival, et al., L'empire des conquérants (Paris 1979) fig. 248, p. 245; p. 244: "En effet, les papyrys médicaux nous apprennent que pour guérir plusiers malaises (coryzas, ophtalmies), il fallait utiliser «du lait de femme qui venait de mettreau monde un enfant mâle,» ce que le récipient nous montre bien. On devait véhiculer le précioux liquide dans ces petites bouteilles rappelant leur contenu."
  77. Line drawing of a seated woman nursing an infant, holding her left breast with her right hand, as another woman stands by, hands raised holding two objects, a fan and a mirror; in Steffen Wenig, The woman in Egyptian art, translated by B. Fischer (New York 1969) p. 27, 45: "Woman nursing a child in the maternity bower. Painted limestone ostracon from Deir el Medine. Twentieth dynasty, about 1200-1100 bc"
  78. Encyclopédie photographique de l'art des les antiquités égyptiennes de musée du Louvre (Paris 1935) tome 1, p. 119: "A goddess. Saite period [XXVI dynasty, 663-525 bce] (Bronze ..) A composite goddess whose head is that of the ram deity. She is represented nursing the god Horus and is wearing the Hathor head-dress, completed in the back by the tail of Selkit, the scorpion goddess."
  79. K. Lange, et al., L'Egypte (München 1967; Paris 1968) pl. 235, "La déesse Anouket donne le sein à Ramses II": "Une des figures divines les plus attrayantes de la Nubie est incontestablement Anouket, la compagne du dieu Khnoum, racée, gracieuse et farouche comme les gazelles du désert. Elle est représentée ici avec une coiffure de l'Afrique intérieure, dans le rôle de nourrice divine, donnant le sein à Ramses II. Ainsi rajeuni pour l'éternité, le souverain entre dans le cycle de l'infini. Le texte qui accompagne l'image se réfère a la déesse; elles est nominée: «Mère du roi, Anouket, Maîtress d'Eléphantine, qui nourrit de son sein le Maître des Deux Pays, Ouser-Maât-Rê (c'est-a-dire Ramses II).» See also V. Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans, p. 3 (Unger, Die Mutter, 36, no. 88); and Man and God in art and ritual: a study of iconography, architecture, and ritual action as primary evidence of religious belief and practice (New York 1975) fig. 338, p. 268: relief showing Ramses II being suckled by the goddess Anoukhet. Temple of Ramses at Bet el-Wali,' ... "Therefore, in view of the mainly magical character of ancient Egyptian art, it would appear more probable that such detailed representations of suppositious events were intended, by virtue of their magical efficacy, to establish and maintain the filial relationship. of the monarch with the state-god."
  80. Walter Addison Jayne, The healing gods of ancient civilizations (1925; New York 1962) p. 86; ref. Wilkinson, iii, 213-214 ; also E.A. Wallis Budge, The gods of the Egyptians or Studies in Egyptian mythology (London 1904) vol. 2, p. 215
  81. "Boutéile en forme de déesse Toueris," Musée du Louvre, Paris; two bottles: 1. left breast horizontal, hole for nipple; 2. right hand holds right breast, hole for nipple, mouth open.
  82. E.A. Wallis Budge, The gods of the Egyptians or Studies in Egyptian mythology (London 1904) vol. 2, p. 210 face
  83. Herder Lexikon: Symbole (Herder Freiburg: Germany 1978) p. 111; also see Steffen Wenig, The woman in Egyptian art, translated by B. Fischer (New York 1969) pl. 36, p. 48 "Nursing goddess. Painting on stucco, h. 18 cm. From a tomb at Western Thebes, Eighteenth dynasty 1450-1400 bc. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Agyptische Abteilung, inv. no. 18534. A tree goddess nourishes a man, probably the owner of the tomb. A nonroyal human being who is being nursed by a goddess has not yet been found elsewhere in Egyptian art."
  84. Adolphe Napoléon Didron, Christian iconography, or The history of Christian art in the Middle Ages, (London 1896) volume I, p. 40-41, fig. 12; from Frédéric Creuzer, Religions de l'antiguité, tome IV, 2e partie-planches, translated by J.D. Guigniaut (Paris 1841) pl. XIX, fig. 103: line drawings from an unknown original
  85. A. Foucher, L'art gréco-bouddhique du Gandhâra: étude sur les origenes de l'infiuence classique dans l'art bouddhique de l'Inde et de l'Extrême-Orient, tome II (Paris 1918) p. 125 129 149 157, figs. 374-5, 376-7, 383, 385; also see R. Soame Jenyns, Chinese art III (Fribourg, Switzerland 1965 1981; Rizzoli: New York 1982) p. 158, fig. 111: ivory statuette of Hariti from China, T'ang dynasty (618-906)
  86. William G. Archer, Bazaar paintings of Calcutta, the style of Kalighat (London 1953) p. 59, fig. 31: Kalighat, c. 1880
  87. Walter M. Spink, Krishnamandala: a devotional theme in Indian art (University of Michigan: Ann Arbor 1971) p. 14, fig. 22: "Yashoda suckling Krishna, South India 11th-12th century, bronze, anonymous loan, courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum"
  88. Frédéric Creuzer, Religions de l'antiguité, 2e partie-planches, translated by J.D. Guigniaut (Paris 1841) vol. 4, pl. XIII, fig. 61
  89. S.G.F. Brandon, Man and God in art and ritual: a study of iconography, architecture, and ritual action as primary evidence of religious belief and practice (New York 1975) fig. 389b. Scene from the life of Krishna, Rylands Museum, Manchester. Ryls. Sanskrit 9, fol. 38v.
  90. Krishna the divine lover: myth and legend through Indian art, edited by Enrico Isacco and Anna L. Dallapiccola (Lausanne 1982) fig. 145, p. 147
  91. Curt Maury, Folk origins of Indian art (New York 1969) p. 110, fig. 112; p. 167, fig. 162
  92. Foucher, L'art gréco-bouddhique du Gandhâra, p. 623, fig. 538: "Háritì, en Sérinde (cf. p. 138 142, 472, 653, 787) Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin. Peinture sur toile provenant de Tourfan"
  93. The arts of Thailand ­ exhibition catalogue (Indiana University 1960; Connecticut 1975) p. 120, fig. 91 "Three maternity figurines. glazed ceramic; average ht. 10.5 cm. (cat. no. 184); nos. 184-209. Examples of Sukhodaya and Swankalók [twin cities] wares 14th-15th centuries. 184. Three maternity dolls (fig. 91) h. 10-11.5 cm. National Museum, Bangkok. The heads of the figurines of nursing mothers were broken off in order to ward off evil spirits."
  94. Kitagawa Utamuro (1753-1806), «Yama Uba allaitant Kintoki» (estampe; Musée Guimet, Paris), Dictionnaire universel de la peinture, ed. Robert Maillard (Paris 1975) vol. 6, p. 335
  95. R. Soame Jenyns, Chinese art III (Fribourg, Switzerland 1965, 1981; Rizzoli: New York 1982) p. 158,
    fig. 111, Ivory statuette of Hariti, T'ang dynasty (618-906 ce) Cleveland, Ohio
  96. Catharina Film, "Intercessio Christi" i svensk senmedeltida konst (Uppsala 1971) p. 37, fig. 18; "Etruskisk spegel. Herkules adopteras i Olympen av Juno."; from Etruskische Spiegel, V, utg. Eduard Gerhard, bearbeitet von A. Klügmann, G. Körte (Berlin 1885-1897) taf. 60
  97. Syracuse, National Archeological Museum; in J. Charbonneaux, Grecia arcáica (Paris 1968; Madrid 1969) fig. 170, p. 140; cf. E. Langlotz and M. Hirmer, Die Kunst der Westgriechen (Germany 1963) fig. 17
  98. Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, whores, wives, and slaves: women in classical antiquity (USA 1975) fig. 9. "Woman suckling child. Red-figure hydria, ca. 440-430 bc. A rare scene of a mother nursing a child in the courtyard of her house as her husband looks on. ... Berlin, Staatliche Museum."
    from Ulrich Gehrig, Führer durch die Antikenabteilung (Staatliche Museen Preussicher Kulturbesitz: Berlin 1968) F2395
  99. Jean Charbonneaux, Martin, Villard, Grecia arcáica (Gallimard: Paris 1968; Madrid 1969) p. 138, fig. 167: "Olimpia ¿Afrodita? Atenas" 580-525 bce
  100. Codex Vaticanus; in 'Venus Period in the picture writings of the Borgian Codex group' by Eduard Seler, Mexican and Central American antiquities, calendar systems, and history; Mexican Antiquities, bulletin 28 (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology: Washington, D.C. 1904) p. 369, fig. 96a: "In the fourth row five female divinities are represented as offering the breast to a naked human form (a, figure 96). I believe that this row is intended to represent the "nourishing of the gods, the tlatlatlaqualiliztli, which was the concluding act of the sacrifice, and consisted in moistening the mouths of the idols with the blood of the victims ..."; see also "Latin American female deity with human nursing at her breast/ Isis suckling the child Horus." 'Mexican representation of Isis suckling Horus (from Mexican Antiquities)' in The signs and symbols of primordial man; the evolution of religious doctrines from the eschatology of the ancient Egyptians by Albert Churchward (London 1913) [Freemason] fig. 54, p. 122
  101. Joseph Campbell, assisted by M. J. Abadie, The mythic image (Princeton: New Jersey 1974) fig. 135: "Chalchihuitlicue, the water goddess. Pre-Columbian Aztec. Codex Borgia, fol 17. Ethnological Museum of the Vatican." ""4 Water," last of the [four] prehistorice [world] ages, had as sun-carrier Tlaloc's wife, the goddess of fiowing waters, known as Chalchiuhtlicue, "She-of-the-robe-of-green-jewels," whom Quetzalcoatl appointed to her post. Her season, which endured but 6 times 52 or 312 years, concluded with a deluge lasting 52 years more, when it rained so hard that the heavens fell and the people became fish. Water was the element of this terminal age, its world quarter the West, and its color blue or blue-green."
  102. F. Sierksma, The gods as we shape them (London 1960) fig. 82: "Oya, mother goddess of the Niger. Yoruba, Nigeria. wood, h. 22 cm. collection: K. van der Horst, Delft. As Goddess of Water and Fertility the goddess Oya, depicted on the ceremonial dance staff shown here, is primarily a «Good Mother.» But there is in Oya something of the «Terrible Mother» as well ... In the carving on this dance staff it is only the Good Mother aspect of Oya that is represented. ... This image depicts Oya as the Nurturing Mother, the source of life and protectress of mankind."
  103. In Greek mythology a general term for a goddess suckling children like Hera, queen of the Greek gods, protectress of suckling children.
  104. R. P. Hinks, 'Isis suckling Horus,' British Museum Quarterly (London 1938) vol. 12, p. 75
  105. Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans, p. 41
  106. Ibid., p. 42; cited from R.E. Witt, Isis in the Graeco-roman world (London 1971) p. 269-281
  107. Pierre du Bourguet, La pintura paleocristiana (Barcelona 1967) figs. 67, 68, 69, 70; and André Grabar, Le premier art chretien (200-395) p. 66-67
  108. Grabar, ibid., p. 68
  109. Compare this figure's upstretched hands of prayer ('orante') with the gesture of Mary, "La Mère de Dieu au geste Médiateur," in the 4th century fresco of the Coemeterium Majus in Rome; in Maurice Vloberg, La Vierge, notre médiatrice (B. Arthaud: Grenoble 1938) p. 13: ch. 1: "L'idée et l'image de la Vierge Médiatrice des origines au XIIe siècle"
  110. Ibid., p. 69-70
  111. Berlin, Staatliche Museen; in Alexander Badawy, Coptic art and archaeology: the art of the Christian Egyptians from the late antique to the Middle Ages (M.I.T.: Massachusetts 1978) fig. 3.74, p. 154 152; see also Klaus Wessel, Koptische Kunst: die Spätantike in Agypten (W. Germany 1963) fig. 5
  112. Cairo, Coptic Museum; in Klaus Wessel, Koptische Kunst: die Spätantike in Agypten (W. Germany 1963) fig. 6
  113. V. Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans, ibid., pl. LXXVIII, figs. 203, 204; from Cairo, Coptic Museum; see also Badawy, Coptic art and archaeology: the art of the Christian Egyptians from the late antique to the Middle Ages, ibid., fig. 4.38, 4.39, p. 283, 261
  114. Klaus Wessel, Koptische Kunst (W. Germany 1963) p. 163, fig. 100: "Himmelfahrt Christi, in der unteren Zone die Stillende Maria zwischen Aposteln. Apsismalerei aus Bawit (nach die Gruuneisen) " Bawit, Kloster des hl. Apollon; see also Tran Tam Tinh, ibid., p. 44: "Dans le désert de Baouît, se groupaient dès 1e IVe siécle des ermites dans un monastère créé par saint Pacôme puis transformé par saint Apollon. Sur le mur Est de la chapelle 42 du couvent d'Apollon on a mis au jour une niche dans laquelle la Madone, datant du VIIe siècle, est assise donnat le sein à l'enfant Jésus. Cette représentation toute humaine de l'enfance du Christ se trouvait au-dessous de l'effigie du Christ en majesté. ­ La Vierge allaitant est entourée de douze Apôtres. La même Madonna lactans se trouvait dans la cellule 30 du même couvent."
  115. Walters Art Gallery, Early Christian and Byzantine art (Baltimore 1947) pl. CVI, p. 745: "Coptic. Late 9th century. Manuscript illumination/ Morgan Library, New York. Executed in 895 or 898 by Deacon Basil and Deacon Samuel of Touton in the Fayum for John, Archimandrite of the monastery of St. Michael of the Desert. Frontispiece: the Virgin nursing the Christ Child, enthroned between two angels." See also José Pijoán, Arte cristiano primitivo. Arte bizantino haste el saqueo de Constantinopla por los cruzados el año 1204, Summa artis - Historia general del arte, vol. VII (Espasa-Calpe: Madrid 1966) p. 127-130, figs. 195 196 197; p. 128: "La Virgen en cátedra de marfil da el pecho al Niño. ¡Qué familiaridad con la Señora de los cielos! Se necesita ser fellah egipcio para permitirse asistir al acto de dar el pecho la divina nodriza del hijo de Dios. Pero Isis dió el pecho a Horus, y por siglos los egipcios contemplaron la diosa amamantado al unigénito de Osiris en pinturas y esculturas. La Virgen copta no sólo muestra el seno cargado, sino que lo estruja, acercándolo a la boca de Jesús. Es una Isis cristiana."; and Jules Leroy, Les manuscripts coptes et coptes-arabes illustrés (Paris 1974) p. 94-105; pl. 29 (1), 31, 34, 36; also Brooklyn Museum, Pagan and Christian Egypt: Egyptian art from the first to the tenth century a.d. (Brooklyn Institute of Art and Science 1941; Arno: New York 1969) pl. 12-13, p. 17
  116. "Saqqara's [Egypt] contribution to Christian iconography is the type of Madonna in which Mary suckles the Child; this appears three times in the frescoes and reminds one at once of the Pharaonic type of Isis suckling Horus. A Coptic carved stele of the seventh century repeats this rendering, and so do Coptic manuscripts of the ninth and tenth; thereafter it disappears from Christian iconography until the twelfth." Charles Rufus Morey, Early Christain art: an outline of the evolution of style and iconography in sculpture and painting from antiquity to the eighth century (Princeton 1942, 1953) p. 89
  117. See Dorothy C. Shorr, The Christ Child in devotional images in Italy during the XIV century (Wittenborn: New York 1954), specifically her discussion of the lactating goddess types, ie, type 9: the Child suckles at his Mother's breast (seated), and type 10: the Child suckles at his Mother's breast (reclining, kneeling, standing)
  118. For example, "the holy council decrees that no one is permitted to erect or cause to be erected in any place or church, howsoever exempt, any unusual image unless it has been approved by the bishop. ... images shall not be painted and adorned with a seductive charm. ... no representation of false doctrines and such as might be the occasion of grave error to the uneducated [shall] be exhibited." in John W. Cook, 'El Greco's art in Counter-Reformation Spain,' Art as religious studies, edited by Doug Adams and Diane Apostolos-Cappadona (Crossroad: New York 1987) p. 134; from Henry J. Schoeder, translator, Canons and decrees of the Council of Trent (Columbia, University of Missouri 1986) p. 216-7
  119. W. Deonna, "La légende de Pero et de Micon et l'allaitement symbolique," Deux études de symbolisme religieux (Latomus: Bruxelles 1955); see also G.-J. Witkowski, Tetoniana: anecdotes historiques et religieuses sur les seins et l'allaitement comprenant l'histoire du décolletage et du corset (Maloine: Paris 1898) frontispiece
  120. H. Lacombe de Prezel, Dictionnaire iconologique (Paris 1779; Genève 1972) vol. 1, p. 119-120
  121. Musée du Louvre, Paris
  122. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia (Rome 1603; New York 1970) p. 44, 64, 469; see also the pendentive of 'Bénignité' pressing both breasts with the p/z gesture, painted by Le Dominiquin (1628-30) in the church of San Carlo ai Catinari, Rome; in Emile Mâle, L'art religieux après le Concile de Trente (Paris 1932) p. 390, fig. 225, p. 391
  123. C. Giarda, Icones Symbolicæ (Milan 1626); in Ernst H. Gombrich, Symbolic images: studies in the art of the Renaissance (London 1972) fig. 133 135
  124. Ibid., p. 64, fig. 9, Rome 1
  125. Ibid., p. 64-65, 78-81.
  126. la carta de fundación de la Cofradía de la Virgen María y Santo Domingo en la iglesia de Tárrega (Lérida), Archivo de la Corona de Aragón; in Trens, María: iconografía de la Virgen en el arte español, p. 461; also Federico Delclaux, Imagenes de la Virgen en los codices medievales de España (Madrid 1973) p. 145
  127. Boston Museum of Fine Arts; in S. Stubbe, La Madone dans l'art (Bruxelles 1958) p. 211, fig. 57;
    Linus Birchler and Otto Karrer, Maria: die Madonna in der Kunst (Zürich 1941) p. 57
  128. National Gallery, London; in Millard Meiss, 'The Madonna of Humility,' The Art Bulletin, vol. 18,
    no. 4 (december 1936) p. 445, fig. 22
  129. Church of St. Gregory's Holy Monastery (over the Gerontikos chair), Mount Athos; in (Monk) Andrew Agioritis, Guide to Mount Athos (Greece 1971) p. 152-3; see also Trens, María: iconografía de la Virgen en el arte español, p. 461: "En la iglesia del Monasterio Chilandari, del Monte Athos (Grecia), era muy venerada una Virgen de la Leche, llamada Panagia Galaktotrophusa."
  130. Berlin Museum; in Dino Formaggio, Botticelli, translated by Paul Colacicchi (New York 1961) pl. 32
  131. Ambrosiana Gallery, Milan; ibid., Formaggio, Botticelli, pl. 38
  132. Alison G. Stewart, Unequal lovers: a study of unequal couples in Northern art (New York 1977) p. 111, fig. 73; see also Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and legendary art, vol. 1, 7th edition (London 1874) p. 329, 324-335: The story goes that St. John, while a hermit, had a sexual encounter with a young woman whom he eventually killed out of "remorse." His self-prescribed penance was to become dumb and roam like a wild beast, and was found as such, brought to a king who demanded he speak. John spoke--which was a sign from God that his penance was accepted and complete.
  133. Karl-Adolf Knappe, Dürer: the complete engravings, etchings, and woodcuts (London 1965) p. 39, fig. B. 34
  134. Ibid., p. 304, B. 97; from The small Passion, published 1511
  135. Ibid., p. 226, B. 76; from Life of the Virgin, published 1511
  136. Ibid., p. 91, B. 36; from The engraved Passion
  137. Ibid., p. 81, B. 22; from The engraved Passion (etching, first state)
  138. London, National Gallery; in Anselm Weissenhofer, Maddonnen (Wien 1946) fig. 9 (1537)
  139. José Camón Aznar, Pintura medieval española, vol. 22: p. 273, 377, 424, 499, 525, 638, 639: fig. 260, 364, 406, 479, 510, 641, 642; and La pintura española del siglo XVI, vol. 24, Summa artis: historia general del arte (Espasa-Calpe: Madrid 1970) vol. 24: p. 104 167 184, 384, 391, 401: figs. 91 158 177, 343, 349, 358
  140. H. W. van Os, Marias Demut und Verherrlichung in der sienesischen Malerei 1300-1450 ('s-Gravenhage: Staatsuitgeverij 1969) figs. 10a, 43, 46, 47, 50, 57, 62-71, 75, 79, 81, 97
  141. Ibid., Trens, María: iconografía, p. 474
  142. Ibid., Trens, María: iconografía, p. 480
  143. Museo del Prado; ibid., Trens, ibid., p. 479, fig. 289; and Camón Aznar, vol. 24, p. 384, fig. 343; also Manuel Trens, Santa María: vida y leyenda a través del arte español (Barcelona 1954?) fig. 108
  144. Valencia; ibid., Trens, María: iconografía, p. 477, fig. 287
  145. Valencia, engraving from Gozos a Nuestra Señora de la Leche, edited by Benito Montfort; ibid., Trens, María: iconografía, p. 477, fig. 287
  146. London, National Gallery
  147. Madrid, Museo del Prado
  148. Gustave Clausse, Basiliques et mosaïques chrétiennes, Italie-Sicile, vol. 2 (Paris 1893) p. 216;
    also see Mariacher Mazzariol, Da Torcello a Murano (Florence 1969) p. 11
  149. Archives of the Toledo Cathedral, Spain; in Manuel Trens, María: iconografía de la Virgen en el arte español, p. 372-3, fig. 226: "María presenta sus pechos, como hizo en otro tiempo Hécuba, para doblegar el ánimo belicoso de su hijo Héctor. (miniatura del siglo XIII. Catedral de Toledo)"; p. 372: "La inscripción dice: Maria ostendit ubera et orat pro peccatoribus («María muestra sus pechos y ruega por los pecadores»)."
  150. Catharina Film, "Intercessio Christi" i svensk senmedeltida konst (Uppsala 1971) p. 53, fig. 24
  151. Très belles heures de Notre-Dame, Musée du Louvre, Paris; in Gertrud Schiller, Iconography of Christian art, translated by Janet Seligman, 2 vols (Gütersloh, Germany 1966 1969; Lund Humphries: London 1971) vol. 2, fig. 799, p. 225
  152. The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, introduction and commentaries by John Plummer (Braziller: New York ?) (reproduced from the illuminated manuscript belonging to the Guennol Collection and the Pierpont Morgan Library) no. 49: Mass of the Dead
  153. Adrian Wilson and Joyce Lancaster Wilson, A medieval mirror: Speculum humanæ salvationis 1324-1500 (University of California 1984) p. 198: ch. 29, 'Extremum judicium (The Last Judgement)' "Christ is seated on a rainbow, his feet resting on a globe, fianked by the figures of the Virgin and John the Baptist who kneel and pray in intercession, the former by showing her breast. Below, four nude figures of the dead emerge from the ground to be judged. From the right of Jesus' head comes the lily of mercy and from the left the sword of vengeance; his right hand, similarly, is held palm up. for the saved and his left palm down for the damned. Revelation XX 11-12 (Apocalypse)"
  154. Ibid., no. 96: Saturday Mass of the Virgin
  155. Catharina Film, "Intercessio Christi", p. 4, fig. 1
  156. Ibid., p. 9, fig. 5
  157. Ibid., p. 11, fig. 7
  158. Formerly, Olivié-Scrive Collection (Arthaud); in Henri Ghéon, The Madonna in art (Paris 1947) pl. 135
  159. Augsburg, Maximilianmuseum; in Schiller, Iconography of Christian art, vol. 2, fig. 802, p. 225
  160. Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum; ibid., vol. 2, fig. 801, p. 225-6
  161. Colegiata de San Isidoro de León; in Manuel Trens, Santa María: vida y leyenda de la Virgen a través del arte español (Barcelona 1954) fig. 102; p. 80: "Los místicos y los pintores cristianos representaron de una manera genial y gráfica la doble y perenne intercesión de Jesús y María. Jesús, para abogar en favor nuestro, presenta al Padre Eterno sus cinco llagas que no dejó apagarse para guía y defensa de pecadores. María por su parte presenta el pecho materno, que alimentó al Hijo de Dios y suyo, como razón suprema y definitiva para inspirar y exigir misericordia. Es el argumento máximo de que Ella dispone para doblegar a la justicia divina. «¡Oh hombre,» exclama San Bernerdo, «tienes asegurado el acceso a Dios, puesto que la Madre está ante el Hijo, el Hijo ante el Padre! La Madre muestra al Hijo su seno y pechos; el Hijo presenta al Padre el costado abierto y las llagas. No cabe repulsa alguna, en donde la caridad se manifiesta de una manera tan generosa.»
  162. Bruxelles, Musées Royaux des Beaus-Arts
  163. Museo del Prado, Madrid; Mauel Trens, Santa María ...; fig. 103: "La Virgen intercede ante su Hijo en favor de un alma (figura desnuda) señalando el pecho que le alimentó. Al mismo fin Santo Domingo presenta el rosario, y San Francisco de Asís el pan del ayuno."
  164. Musée du Toulouse
  165. Louis Réau, Iconographie de l'art chretien, vol. 3: Iconographie des saints (Paris 1958) p. 209, 213-215
  166. Palma de Majorca, Archaeological Museum; Miess, 'The Madonna of Humility,' p. 457, fig. 26
  167. Musée de Liège, in Jean Leclercq, St. Bernard et l'esprit cistercien (Bourges 1966) p. 130
  168. Brussels, in Das Marienleben, fig. 379, p. 497
  169. Museo del Prado, Madrid, in José Camón Aznar, La pintura española del siglo XVI, Summa artis - Historia general del arte (Madrid 1970) vol. 26, p. 157, fig. 146
  170. Catedral de Burgo de Osma, Spain, in José Camón Aznar, Pintura medieval española, Summa artis - Historia general del arte (Madrid 1970) vol. 22, p. 289, fig. 275
  171. Engraving; Trappists, Commission d'histoire de l'Order de Cîteaux, Bernard de Clairvaux (Paris 1953) p. 455; reproduced from Sanderus, Chorographia sacra Brabantiae (Bruxelles 1659) vol. 1, 38
  172. August Mayer, Murillo - des Meisters Gemälde, p. 60; also Manuel Trens, María: iconografía de la Virgen en el arte español (Madrid 1947) p. 475, fig. 286: "Así como el máximo servicio prestado por la Madre de Dios a su Hijo, fué de amamantarle, también el máximo favor de María a sus predilectos es el de darles su leche."
  173. Academía de San Fernando, Madrid; in Emile Mâle, L'art religieux après le Concile de Trente (Paris 1932) p. 455, fig. 263
  174. Ibid., p. 157, Museo del Prado
  175. Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; in Leo Steinberg, The sexuality of Christ in Renaissance art and in modern oblivion (Pantheon: New York 1983) p. 5, fig. 10
  176. Heinrich Detzel, Christliche Ikonographie: ein Handbuch zum Berständuik der christlichen Kunst (Freiburg im Breisgau 1896) fig. 258, p. 578, 'capitol in Rom'
  177. Musée du Louvre, Paris; inv 1442/3
  178. San Petronio; in Béguin, Studies in the late Medieval and Renaissance painting, in honor of Millard Meiss
    (New York 1977) vol. 2, plates; p. 20, fig. 3. Style with p/z gesture repeated in Parmigianino's drawings from the Louvre (Paris) Cabinet des Dessins, no. 6397, fig. 8, 9 as above.
  179. Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota; also as noted above, see Titian's «Magdalen» in the Pitti Gallery of Florence; in The early works of Titian
  180. Arthur de Bles, How to distinguish saints in art: a practical guide for picture lovers (New York 1925) pl. XXXIX, fig. 3
  181. Brescia, Santi Nazaro e Celso; in Béguin, Studies in the late Medieval and Renaissance painting, in honor of Millard Meiss, article by Chastel, p. 24?, fig. 5
  182. The Pitman Gallery, The Virgin and Child, introduction and notes by Thomas Bodkin (New York 1949)
  183. K. Krishnamoorthy, "Female deities in the Rigveda," Journal of Dharma (Dharmaram College: Bangalore, India april-june 1980) vol. 5:2, p. 138. Hymn X.9, verses 1-3. See also Mahesh C.P. Srivastava, Mother Goddess in Indian art, archæology and literature (Delhi 1979) p. 44-5, 47, 51-2, 101, 125.
  184. 1.164: the Riddle of the Sacrifice (Asya Vamasya); The Rig Veda: an anthology, translated by Wendy O'Flaherty (Penguin: England 1981) p. 81, stanza 49
  185. G2.35: the Child of the Waters (Apam Napat); ibid; p. 105-06, stanzas 5, 13
  186. Purnendu Narayana Sinha, A study of the Bhagavata Purana or esoteric Hinduism (Benares 1901) 'Putaná,' Skandha X, chapter 6, p. 253-4; see also p. 304 re Mala (impurity) and Putaná.
    See also Walter M. Spink, Krishnamandala: a devotional theme in Indian art (University of Michigan: 1971) p. 8-9; Wendy O'Flaherty, Hindu myths: an anthology (Penguin: England 1975) p. 214;
    Krishna the divine lover: myth and legend through Indian art, edited by Enrico Isacco and Anna L. Dallapiccola (Lausanne 1982) p. 32-4, 56.
  187. Goodenough, Jewish symbols, vol. 5 116 and 128-129. "The legend of King Keret," quoted from James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern text relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton 1955) p. 146; from Hildreth York and Betty L. Schlossman, ""She shall be called woman": ancient Near Eastern sources of imagery," Woman's art journal, fall 1981/winter 1982, vol. 2, no. 2, p. 39: This is taken "to be the first appearance of the transference of divinity to a mortal by the fact of his being nursed by a goddess."
  188. Raphael Patai, The Hebrew goddess (U.S. 1967) p. 167 176; see also James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (Princeton 1955) p. 131-146, 490; and William L. Reed, The Asherah in the Old Testament (Fort Worth 1949)
  189. Ibid., Patai, p. 165; see also S. N. Kramer, The Sumerians: ..., (Chicago 1963) p. 112?
  190. Eannatum's stela of the vultures; ibid., p. 301, note 22: (p. 406) after Jacobsen, "The concept of divine parentage of the ruler in the Stele of the Vultures," JNES, II (1943) p. 119-21; see also H. Frankfort, Kingship. and the Gods (Chicago 1948)
  191. 'The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys,' in E.A. Wallis Budge, Osiris: the Egyptian religion of resurrection (New York 1961) p. 64
  192. 'Pyramid Texts,' ibid., p. 136-7
  193. Ibid., p. 144-7
  194. 'Pyramid Texts of Pepi I, Mer-en-Ra, and Pepi II,' ibid., appendix, p. 336: 601., 605
  195. Part of a supplementary ceremony representing "acts of adoration which are paid to the statue, which, having received the soul of the deceased, is now considered to be a veritable god." p. 121, in E.A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Opening of the Mouth (London 1909) p. 125 127
  196. The Iliad of Homer, translated by Richmond Lattimore (University of Chicago: Chicago 1951) p. 437, lines 77-92
  197. Diodorus Siculus, Library of history 4.9.1-10 -- The birth of Herakles (Sicily, Ist century bce); in David R. Cartlidge and David L. Dungan, Documents for the study of the Gospels (Fortress: Philadelphia 1981)
  198. The Homeric hymns: To Demeter II 185-299; in Mircea Eliade, Gods, goddesses, and myths of creation (NY 1967 1974) ch. 35. Demeter and the founding of the Eleusinian Mysteries, p. 63-6
  199. Ananda Coomaraswamy, 'The Virgin suckling St. Bernard,' The Art Bulletin (University of Chicago: june 1937) vol. 19, no. 2, p. 318
  200. All citations from Hebrew and Christian scriptures are from The Holy Bible--New International Version (Hodder & Stoughton: Great Britain 1982)
  201. Daniel F. Stramara, OSB, 'El Shaddai: a feminine aspect of God,' The Pecos Benedictine (Pecos, New Mexico, november 1985) p. 2
  202. Theological dictionary of the Old Testament, edited by G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, Michigan 1977/80) vol. 4, p. 389-90
  203. The Gospel of Luke 11:27-28; compare with the Gospel of Thomas, II, 2, 79 in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (Leiden/USA 1977)
  204. Theological dictionary of the NewTestament, edited by Gerhard Kittel, translated and edited by Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, Michigan 1964) vol. 1, p. 645
  205. Ibid., p. 646
  206. The Odes of Solomon, edited with translation and notes by James Hamilton Charlesworth (Oxford: London 1973); compare with the source in the following note.
  207. Rendel Harris and Alphonse Mingana, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon (London 1920) vol. 2, in The other Bible, edited by Willis Barnstone (New York 1984) p. 279-80, 283
  208. The Odes of Solomon, edited with translation and notes by James Hamilton Charlesworth (Oxford: London 1973)
  209. The Concept of Our Great Power, VI, 4; 40:10-41:10; in The Nag Hammadi Library in English (Leiden/USA 1977)
  210. Irenæus, Against Heresies (Adversus Omnes Hæreses), book 3, ch. 24:1; in Stramara, 'El Shaddai ...' ibid., p. 7
  211. Jerome, (Rome?, 373) xiv (t.i. 29 sq)
  212. In David B. Foss, 'From God as mother to priest as mother: Julian of Norwich and the movement for the ordination of women,' in The Downside Review, july 1986, vol. 104, no. 356 (Downside Abbey, Bath; Catholic Records Press: Exeter) p. 223
  213. The Cause of Canonization (Processo di canonizzazione), Acta III. 29; Testimony of Sister Phillipa, third witness; in Fonti Francescane -- Sezione Quarta, p. 2333-4, no. 2995
  214. The dialogue of the seraphic virgin, Catherine of Siena, dictated by Her, while in a State of Ecstasy, to her Secretaries, and Completed in the Year of Our Lord 1370,..., introductory essay by Algar Thorold (Burns, Oates & Washbourne: London 1925) p. 100 135 185-6, 216, 222, 314
  215. Julian of Norwich, Showings or Revelations of Divine Love, ch. 58-63; in David B. Foss, 'From God as mother to priest as mother: Julian of Norwich and the movement for the ordination of women,' in The Downside Review, july 1986, vol. 104, no. 356 (Downside Abbey, Bath; Catholic Records Press: Exeter) p. 223
  216. From Margaret R. Miles, 'Nudity, gender, and religious meaning in the Italian Renaissance,' Art as religious studies, edited by Doug Adams and Diane Apostolos-Cappadona (Crossroad: New York 1987); cited in Hilda Graef, Mary, a history of doctrine and devotion (Sheed and Ward: New York 1963) 1:316-7
  217. The Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine (1229-1298), translated and adapted from the Latin by Graner Ryan and Helmut Ripperger (New York 1941) part I, p. 155-6
  218. Ibid., p. 159; see also Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and legendary art, 7th edition (London 1874) vol. 2, p. 609
  219. Ibid., part II, p. 465
  220. "Nuestra Señora de la LECHE.--Está muy extendida la devoción a Nuestra Señora de la Leche, y a Ella se encomiendan con singular fervor las madres lactantes, invocando la protección de la Virgen en la crianza de sus hijos." José Augusto Sánchez Pérez, El culto mariano en España (Madrid 1943)
  221. In their particular "return to the mother," lesbians feel a sense of recovery or reclamation of "rights" to the mother: "rights" to a woman's body and its nourishment, which patriarchy has stolen and given to men. This idea of the "recovery of the mother" is consistent with Chodorow"s psychoanalytic argument that all children, because of women's exclusive mothering, are first matrisexual, that is, the first love object being female, our desires are first focused on the mother. ... Chodorow, Mitchell, Rudin, and others have analyzed how the father's (culture's) possession of the mother (all women) forces both male and female children to give up. their first intimacy for later compensations. Because of the prescription of mandatory heterosexuality, it is the father (and all men) who will possess the mother (and all women), and women who will be possessed by men, not by other women." Haunani-Kay Trask, Eros and power: the promise of feminist theory (1986) p. 104
  222. Margaret R. Miles, "The Virgin's one bare breast: female nudity and religious meaning in Tuscan early Renaissance culture," The female body in Western culture, edited by Susan Rubin Suleiman (Harvard: Cambridge, Massachusetts 1986) p. 202
  223. Millard Meiss, "The Madonna of Humility," Art bulletin (College Art Association: New York december 1936) vol. 184, p. 460-1
  224. Larson, Pal, Gowen, In her image: the Great Goddess in Indian Asia and the Madonna in Christian culture (California,1980) p. 97
  225. "As far back as 1800, Erasmus Darwin, Charles' grandfather, noted the close connection between breast-feeding and bosomania. In a panegyric on the female bosom he extolled the voluptuous sensations which the baby derives from cuddling up. to what he called the mother's milky fountain. These childhood experiences are never forgotten; "in our maturer years," he wrote, "when an object of vision is presented to us which bears any similitude to the form of the female bosom, ... we feel a general glow of delight which seems to influence all our senses; and if the object be not too large we experience an attraction to embrace it with our lips as we did in our early infancy the bosom of our mothers."" Bernard Rudofsky, The unfashionable human body (New York 1971);
    "Of all the situations in which clothing is disarranged, that which allows a woman to give suck is one of the most attractive. Its basic eroticism is always reassuringly transcended by the everyday sanctity of mother's milk. Breasts bring pleasure to everyone, and sight of them brings its own visual joy besides; and so images of breasts are always sure conveyors of a complex delight. ... Ever since the earliest Christian use of the theme, one bare breast signifies maternity, but it also seems appropriate to other forms of unselfconscious exposure. The fighting Amazon and the suckling Mother of Christ are, after all, both fierce virgins intent on matters other than pleasure; and their single-breasted descendants in art usually share either their ferocity or their artlessness or both. One bare breast certainly became an erotic signal in art, but as such, after the sixteenth century, it still tended to appeal to the voyeurism of the spectator. The breast's owner was supposed to be unaware that it showed." Anne Hollander, Seeing through clothes (Avon: New York 1975) p. 186-199
  226. "That orality--the threshold of infantile regression--manifests itself in connection with the breast whereas the spasm that comes at eroticism's eclipse is associated with tears should not be allowed to obscure what milk and tears have in common: both are metaphors of non-language, of a "semiotic" that does not coincide with linguistic communication. The Mother and her attributes signifying suffering humanity thus become the symbol of a "return of the repressed" in monotheism. They reestablish the nonverbal and appear as a signifying modality closer to the so-called primary processes.", "The Virgin obliterates the desire to murder or devour through a strong oral investment --the breast." Julia Kristeva, "Stabat Mater," The female body in Western culture, edited by Susan Rubin Suleiman (Harvard: Cambridge, Massachusetts 1986) p. 109, 114
  227. "Paintings of the Virgin with one bare breast constitute a remarkably explicit objectification of what was most certainly the most pressing personal and collective anxiety of fourteenth-century Tuscan people--the uncertainty of food supply." Margaret Miles, "The Virgin's one bare breast: female nudity and religious meaning in Tuscan early Renaissance culture," The female body in Western culture, p. 204, 206
  228. "On the façade of the portico of the S. Maria-in-Trastevere at Rome, the Virgin is enthroned, and crowned, and giving her breast to the Child. This mosaic is of later date than that in the apsis, but is one of the oldest examples of a representation which was evidently directed against the heretical doubts of the Nestorians: "How," said they, pleading before the council of Ephesus, "can we call him God who is only two or three months old; or suppose the Logos to have been suckled and to increase in wisdom?" ... The Virgin in the act of suckling her Child, is a motif often repeated when the original significance was forgotten." Mrs. Jameson, Legends of the Madonna as represented in the fine arts (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company 1890) p. 163;
    "Other modalitites of this pledge come to mind, notably the Christ Child's dependence on nourishment; for the iconic type of the nursing Madonna did not enter the repertory of Christian art because painters saw mothers breastfeed their children, and not merely to display the Madonna's humility, as suggested by Millard Meiss, but to attest once again the truth of the Incarnation. This is why the Virgin gives suck even in formal sessions, as when she sits to St. Luke for her portrait. This is why the nursling is so often depicted turning his face to alert our attention; or, more incongruously, with his mouth engaged and eyes forward, striding toward us; or even sub specie aeternitatis, moon-cradled above the clouds, still owning his erstwhile need. The image of the Maria lactans, popular since the mid-14th century, assured the believer that the God rooting at Mary's breast had become man indeed; and that she who sustained the God-man in his infirmity had gained infinite credit in heaven." Leo Steinberg, The sexuality of Christ in Renaissance art and in modern oblivion (New York 1983) p. 13-15; also Margaret R. Miles, "The Virgin's one bare breast: female nudity and religious meaning in Tuscan early Renaissance culture," The female body in Western culture, p. 200
  229. Rüdiger Robert Beer, Unicorn: myth and reality, translated by C.M. Stern (New York 1977) p. 29, figs. 11 and 12: "Virgin and unicorn in two Byzantine manuscripts, 9th century".
  230. see Catharina Film, "Intercessio Christi" i svensk senmedeltida konst (Uppsala 1971)
  231. "... God taught us wisdom, but Mary taught Christ to flee from the hurtful and follow her; God nourished us with the fruits of paradise, but she nourished him with her most holy milk, so that I may say this for the blessed Virgin, whom, however, God made himself, God is in some way under a greater obligation to us through her, than we to God (trans. in Graef 1963:316-317)." Margaret R. Miles, "The Virgin's one bare breast: female nudity and religious meaning in Tuscan early Renaissance culture," The female body in Western culture, p. 202
  232. "The Virgin/Mother Mary is repeatedly shown in fourteenth-century Tuscan paintings with one breast exposed. Although this is not a completely new image, the visual emphasis on the breast that nourished the infant Christ--and by identification with him, all Christians--is startling. Mary is shown nursing or preparing to nurse Christ, or, as in a fresco by an anonymous Florentine painter, cupping in her hand one breast which she shows to the adult Christ, while pointing to a group. of sinners, huddled at her feet, for whose salvation she pleads. The inscription reads: "Dearest son, because of the milk I gave you, have mercy on them."" Margaret R. Miles, ibid., p. 193
  233. "By the beginning of the sixteenth century the single bare breast in art, exposed by fancifully draped garments, had accumulated a combined significance. It referred initially to its august maternal function, with its long sacred tradition in Christian art; it had acquired the right to carry a direct allusion to the ancient world; and in a new humanist atmosphere it became a plain symbol of sexual delight--this last meaning probably made possible by other two. Then, as Mannerist traditions were established and followed, a vogue for the conventional representation in art of emotional turmoil allowed one exposed breast to be the focus of such expression for a whole composition." Anne Hollander, Seeing through clothes, p. 187
  234. "But the significance of the attitude--the hand pressed to the maternal bosom--given to her by the old painters, is lost." Mrs. Jameson, Legends of the Madonna as represented in the fine arts (London 1890; Detroit 1972) p. 29.
  235. "While this half-length Madonna and Child belongs to the Maria lactans class of imagery, the fundamental gesture of nursing is here elevated by the celestial brilliance of the rays of gold ... With Christ as the "New Adam" and Mary as the "New Eve," the nursing gesture here becomes a sign of the sustenance and salvation of mankind." G.J. Larson, P. Pal, R.P. Gowen, In her image: the Great Goddess in Indian Asia and the Madonna in Christian culture (California 1980) p. 110
  236. "... la mujer que cría pondrá al pequeño en la posición más cómoda; se ofrecerá el pecho al niño sujetándolo entre el índice y el dedo medio de la mano que no sostiene al pequeño." Pietro Escalar, nuestro hijo: guía práctica de la puericultura moderna, trans. of Il mio bambino (Barcelona 1968) p. 127; "Poor technique for nipple grasp. and release is one of the main contributors to nipple discomfort. The areola should be grasped lightly betwen the forefinger and middle finger of the free hand and fiattened slightly to correspond with the oval shape of the infant's mouth." Worthington-Roberts, et al., Nutrition in pregnancy and lactation (Mosby: St. Louis 1981) 2nd edition
  237. Pietro Escalar, et al., Nuestro hijo: guía práctica de la puericlutura moderna, ibid., p. 127
  238. In Christian theology, Jesus is God, therefore making Mary, his mother, the Mother of God (Theotokos). "[According to the 18th-century Patriarch Germanus] ... Mary can give God orders. Christ obeyed her on earth. Therefore, as the Second Person of the Trinity, he still obeys her in heaven. 'You, having maternal power with God, can obtain abundant forgiveness even for the greatest sinners. For he can never fail to hear you, because God obeys you through and in all things, as his true Mother.'" Geoffrey Ashe, Miracles (London 1978) p. 82-3.
  239. "At her most exalted ... the Virgin was conceived in the role of Maria mediatrix, intercessor for mankind. Her act of suckling the Christ Child not only gave her the authority to intercede for mankind, but signified her merciful inclination to do so. Thus she was represented in medieval and Renaissance scenes of the Last Judgement, seated at the side of Christ the Judge in order to intercede on behalf of the resurrected soul. Another image, the Madonna della Misericordia (Madonna of Mercy) also conveys this concept of intercessory protection. Her maternal involvement as protectress also extended into the lives of individuals. ... Depictions of ... miracles and visions ultimately formed yet another class of Marian imagery whose significance lies in the demonstation of her mercy, the product of her nurture." Larson, et al. In her image: the Great Goddess in Indian Asia and the Madonna in Christian culture, p. 97
  240. "What is involved here is a misunderstanding of a critical truth: that naturalistic motifs in Renaissance art are never adequately accounted for by their prevalence in life situations. Ordinary experience is no template for automatic transfer to art." Steinberg, The sexuality of Christ in Renaissance art and modern oblivion, p. 5
  241. See Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: studies in the spirituality of the High Middle Ages (University of California: Berkeley 1982), and Roberta C. Bondi, review of Jesus as Mother by Caroline Walker Bynum, History of Religions (Chicago february 1984) vol. 23, no. 3, p. 278-280
  242. "Thus the saint [St. Ildefonso] acts as intercessor and provides a stepping stone from the physical to the Divine ...", David Davies, El Greco (Oxford/NY/ Netherlands 1976) notes on illustration 13, 'The resurrection of Christ'
  243. Regarding an artistic motif becoming symbolic, its migration, subsequent abstraction, and meaning lost, then recovered, see Otto J. Brendel, "A kneeling Persian: migrations of a motif," Essays in the history of art presented to Rudolf Wittkower, edited by D. Fraser (London 1967)
  244. See notes 226 and 223, 228, 229 above.
  245. Lecture notes, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1981.
  246. See also the second version in Anne Murray-Robertson, Grasset: pionnier de l'art nouveau (Paris 1981) p. 110-111.