The angels dictation

Unknown artist

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We do not know who painted this picture with the Angel dictating to the Holy Birgitta, but we are sure that it is from the second half of the 15th Century and from Germany or Holland.

The motif is from the Holy Birgitta’s time in Rome. She had begun to write the prayers at the canonical hours for the sisters in the pending Vadstena Monastery, but when she did not know what or how she should write, Christ promised to help her. The painting shows how the angel, sent by Christ, dictates the texts to be read during the morning service in the new monastery Birgitta planned to build.

Birgitta is sitting on an elegant carved chair to which a writing board is attached. The place is an open room, a loggia, and outside a glimpse of a terrace and countryside. Birgitta is wearing the Order’s dress in black with gold-edged mantle and kirtle-hem. On her left, as we see it, there is an angel with one hand raised in a speaker’s gesture and the other holding the pages of the book.

Birgitta sits listening and ready to receive and write down the angel’s dictation. To emphasise the atmosphere of seriousness and divine inspiration the Holy Spirit’s dove hovers over Birgitta’s head. On each side of the golden baldachin behind Birgitta, we can see God the Father on the left and the Virgin Mary with the Infant Jesus on the right.

It is said that the Holy Birgitta devotedly wrote down what the angel dictated to her and then daily showed her confessor what she had written.