05 Works, Today, March 20th, is Saint Cuthbert's Day, With Footnotes - #78

Saint Cuthbert, bishop

Saint Cuthbert, (born 634/635, died March 20, 687, islet of Inner Farne), bishop of the great Benedictine abbey of Lindisfarne (or Holy Island) one of the most venerated English saints, who evangelized Northumbria and was posthumously hailed as a wonder-worker.

After a divine vision, Cuthbert, a shepherd, entered the Northumbrian monastery of Melrose under Abbot St. Eata. In 661 Melrose was struck by the plague, afflicting Cuthbert and killing the prior, whom he succeeded. Thereafter, he aided plague victims while missioning throughout the countryside, reportedly performing miracles.

Ernest Ange Duez

Saint Cuthbert , c. 1879,

Oil on canvas, central part of the triptych 

334 X 134

Paris, Musée d'Orsay

Ernest Ange Duez (8 March 1843 – 5 April 1896) was a French painter of genre scenes, portraits, landscapes and religious subjects.

Duez studied painting under Isidore Pils. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1868 and achieved success there in 1874 with a third-class medal for his paintings .


In 1879 at the Salon he exhibited the large triptych Saint Cuthbert, depicting the stages of the life of Cuthbert set in landscapes based on the countryside around Villerville. Considered his greatest work, it is now in the Musée d'Orsay.

In 1883 Duez moved into a studio on boulevard Berthier, close to that of John Singer Sargent Singer painted portraits of Duez and his wife in 1884–6. Duez's circle also included the painters Paul-Albert Besnard, Jacques-Émile Blanche and Roger-Joseph Jourdain.

Duez carried out a number of commissions for the adornment of public buildings in Paris.


Duez died on 5 April 1896 from a cerebral haemorrhage while cycling in the Forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. More on Ernest Ange Duez 

When in 663/664 at the Synod of Whitby the Northumbrians decided to adopt Roman rather than Celtic church customs.  In 664 Eata and Cuthbert firmly supported the synod’s decisions. They were transferred to Lindisfarne, Eata as bishop and Cuthbert as prior. Thence, Cuthbert maintained reforms decreed by Whitby, instituted a severe rule, and extended his apostolate south, to Durham. A hermit by nature, Cuthbert retired in 676 to Inner Farne, where he devoted himself to prayer and where he built an oratory and cell. His fame for holiness grew. His successful efforts to protect birds made him one of the earliest wildlife conservationists.

Frontispiece of Bede's Life of St Cuthbert

King Æthelstan (924–39) presenting a copy of the book to the saint himself, c. 930

29.2 x 20cm (11 1/2 x 7 7/8")

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

William Bell Scott

Egfrith offering the Bishopric of Hexham to Cuthbert, 678, c1920

A print from Hutchinson's Story of the British Nation, Volume I

William Bell Scott (1811–1890) was a Scottish artist in oils and watercolour and occasionally printmaking. He was also a poet and art teacher, and his posthumously published reminiscences give a chatty and often vivid picture of life in the circle of the Pre-Raphaelites; he was especially close to Dante Gabriel Rossetti. After growing up in Edinburgh, he moved to London, and from 1843 to 1864 was principal of the government School of Art in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he added industrial subjects to his repertoire of landscapes and history painting. He was one of the first British artists to extensively depict the processes of the Industrial Revolution. He returned to London, working for the Science and Art Department until 1885. More on William Bell Scott

In 684 King Ecgfrith of Northumbria made him bishop of Hexham, a see that he exchanged with Eata in 685 for that of Lindisfarne. In 687 he again retired to Inner Farne. A small 14th-century chapel stands on the site of his final hermitage. He was buried at Lindisfarne, but his body was removed in 875 to protect it from Viking raids; after many moves in northeastern England, it was finally deposited (in Durham Cathedral, which, until its destruction by King Henry VIII in 1538, was a great pilgrimage site. Numerous churches and monuments are dedicated to him. More on aint Cuthbert

Prose Life of St Cuthbert, depicting the miracle where Cuthbert's body is discovered incorrupt, Late 12th century

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