Inscription on the Votive Painting of Vladislaus II

The votive picture of Vladislaus II in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Buda- pest is an outstanding work of the Jagiellonian court art. The panel, attributed to the court painter of Emperor Maximilian I, Bernhard Strigel, shows Saint Ladislaus recom- mending Vladislaus II and his children under the protection of the Virgin. The histori- cal source value of the work is reduced by the fact that the facial features of its charac- ters have become victims of iconoclasm. Previous research considered the inscription of the scroll wrapped around the axe of St. Ladislaus to be illegible. The partial reading of the heavily worn inscription published here confirms its supposed votive nature and suggests that the person who commissioned the panel – as opposed to the assump- tions that it would be a commission of Maximilian I – was Vladislaus II himself.

scroll inscription, Strigel, Vladislaus II, Saint Ladislaus, Patrona Hungariae