Master of La Palma - Lactation of Saint Bernard

• Title: Lactation of Saint Bernard (top left panel of Altarpiece of Saint Bernard)
• Artist: Master of La Palma (?-?)
• Date: 1285-90
• Medium: Tempera on wood
• Dimensions: 153 x 225 cm
• Location: Museu de Mallorca, Palma, Majorca, Spain

This small painted panel shows a scene of the legend of Saint Bernard, who was very popular in the Cistercian order. This is the miracle in which the saint invoked the Virgin by saying “show me that you are my mother”. The latter spouted milk from her breast into the mouth of Saint Bernard...

"The Lactation of Saint Bernard" by the Master of La Palma turns a moment of mystical intimacy into a public devotional image. The painting visualizes the idea that the Virgin Mary’s grace quite literally nourishes the faithful. So, what may seem erotic or transgressive to us was a metaphor for union with divine wisdom and purity.

According to medieval legend, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) had a profound devotion to the Virgin Mary. One day, as he prayed before a statue of her, he begged: “Show yourself to be a mother.” In response, the statue miraculously came to life and sprayed a few drops of milk from her breast onto Bernard’s lips.

In Christian symbolism, Mary’s milk is spiritual nourishment, like the Word being made flesh. Bernard becomes “fed” with divine knowledge by receiving her milk, just as a child receives life from the mother. Hence, the image expresses the “Lactatio spiritualis”, the mystical feeding of the soul with God’s truth.

The act symbolized Mary’s intercession for humankind and the mystical union between the faithful and the Virgin through grace.

This miracle became one of the most famous legends of the Middle Ages and was frequently painted from the 14th to the 17th centuries accross Europe by artists like Murillo, Alonso Cano, and José de Ribera.