The Mass of Saint Gregory

About the Artwork

Saint Gregory was a late 6th-century pope and one of the fathers of the early Roman Church. This painting depicts the popular legend in which Gregory once overheard an onlooker express doubts about Christ’s actual presence at the altar during mass. In response, the saint’s immense faith was rewarded by a vision of Christ surrounded by the instruments and symbols of his passion. Saint Gregory, vested in his chasuble, kneels in the center, flanked by priests who share his amazement. This painting was part of an altarpiece commissioned by Erhard Künig, a member of a charitable lay order for a monastery near Strassburg. Künig stands at the far right wearing a Maltese cross. The two wings of the altar, showing respectively Saint John the Evangelist and Saint John the Baptist, are in New York and Washington. Hans Baldung was both a painter and a printmaker and is regarded as one of the most gifted students of Albrecht Dürer.

Provenance

St. John's Convent, Strasbourg, as late as the 18th century; (listed in an inventory of 1741); Marquis de Villefranche; Henkell coll., Wiesbaden; (Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York)

Exhibition history

In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 4-April 7, 1958). Hans Baldung Grien. Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany (organizer) (July 4-September 27, 1959). Draped in Splendor: Renaissance Textiles and the Church. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 7, 2003-September 26, 2004). Hans Baldung Grien. Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany (organizer) (November 30, 2019-March 8, 2020) https://www.kunsthalle-karlsruhe.de/en/exhibition/hans-baldung-grien-2/.

Quick Overview

Artist: Hans Baldung (German, 1484/85–1545)
Date: 1511
Medium: oil and tempera on wood
Dimensions: Framed: 126 x 142.5 x 8.5 cm (49 5/8 x 56 1/8 x 3 3/8 in.); Unframed: 89.2 x 125 cm (35 1/8 x 49 3/16 in.)
Type: Painting
Classification: Painting
Department: Medieval Art
Credit line: Gift of the Hanna Fund
Accession no.: 1952.112

Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.