'Dying Well in Renaissance Europe' is Jolly's lecture topic

"Mary Magdalene and the Good Widow: The Art of Dying Well in Renaissance Europe" is the title of Skidmore's Annual Art History Lecture, to be given by Professor Penny Howell Jolly. Free and open to the public, the talk gets under way at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13, in Davis Auditorium, Palamountain Hall.

According to Jolly, the young widow Catherine de Brabant commissioned Rogier van der Weyden's "Braque Triptych" (Paris, Louvre) soon after her first husband's untimely death in 1452. But why did she keep it in her home the rest of her long life, will it to their grandson, and ask to be buried beside this long-dead first husband instead of her second, with whom she lived 38 years? Her talk will explore how this triptych functioned as an interactive "device" for Catherine: a means for her to help her husband's soul in its progress from Purgatory to Heaven.

Jolly teaches courses in medieval and Renaissance European art and architecture, from third-century early Christian imagery through art of the 16th century. Her publications on 15th-century Flemish and Italian painting, by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Jacques Daret, and Antonello da Messina, have appeared in various journals, including The Art Bulletin, The Burlington Magazine, the Zeitschrift f r Kunstgeschichte, and Oud Holland. In 1997, she published a book on a 13th-century mosaic cycle titled Made in God's Image? Eve and Adam in the Genesis Mosaics at San Marco, Venice.

Her current work focuses on gender issues in 15th-century art, particularly imagery that relates to pregnancy, maternity, and breastfeeding. Maternity clothing as metaphor in 15th-century Netherlandish art was the theme of Jolly's Edwin M. Moseley Faculty Research Lecture in 2002. Selection as the Moseley lecturer is the highest honor that the Skidmore faculty can confer upon a colleague.

A cum laude graduate of Oberlin College, where she earned a B.A. degree in art history and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Jolly received master's and doctoral degrees in art history at the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the Skidmore faculty in 1976.