Appendix 6
The Portrait of Our Lady by St. Luke
In the church on St. Thomas Mount we find on the altar an oil
painting of the Madonna on wood. The tradition since a long time
has been that this picture was painted by the Evangelist St. Luke
and that St. Thomas brought it here with him. Mr. J. J. Cotton in
his famous “Tombs and Inscriptions in the Madras Presidency”
(Government publication) records: “This is a picture painted by St.
Luke, who was an artist. The Virgin died when St. Thomas was
away and on his return he had the tomb opened, in order that he
might once more look upon her. It was found that the body had
been miraculously removed and St. Thomas was so distressed that
St. Luke offered to paint him a portrait of the Virgin as a
consolation. This St. Thomas carried about with him in all his
wanderings”. The painting became famous from the year 1559,
after the Portuguese took possession of the shrine on the Mount.
There is also an interesting story narrated about this picture. One
of the Portuguese residents of Mylapore betrayed the other
Portuguese by falsely reporting to the Court of the Emperor of
Vijayanagar that they were very rich and in possession of much
gold and silver. The Emperor sent an army of 400,000 against just
a small number of Portuguese that were settled in Mylapore. They
ransacked the church of St. Thomas and the houses of the
residents and found that they had nothing. The Emperor was
enraged and ordered the capture of the one who had betrayed
them. He ran away in the direction of Nagapatam but the elephants
were sent to catch him. One of the elephants caught the man and
killed him. Thereupon the Emperor ordered that the coffer with
some Relics of St. Thomas and the picture of Our Lady mentioned
above be taken to his royal Court at Chandragiri along with 31
noble Portuguese as captives. That same night Our Lady appeared
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to the Queen and revealed that her husband would be killed in the
battle he was raging and that the Kingdom of Vijayanagar would
fall. From that time the decadence of the Kingdom started and it
was taken up in parts by various other rulers. The Emperor
however, ordered that the picture of Our Lady be returned in a
palanquin to St. Thomas Mount from where it was taken and the
relics in the coffer be returned to San Thome (Mylapore).
The Portrait
We had already seen the original legend as to how the painting of
Luke came into the possession of St. Thomas the Apostle64. But
how come that it was Luke who painted the picture of Mary and
not any other Evangelist like John or Mathew who should have
known Mary even better. We may adduce reasons for the tradition
that it was Luke who was attributed with this painting. In the first
place it was only Luke who exhibited some artistic characteristics
about him in the way he has made certain descriptions in his
Gospel. His description of the gracious and compassionate Father
in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15), his portrayal of the
agony of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, and his narration of
the sentiments of Mary at the Annunciation clearly show us the
artist in the person of Luke. He had shown a special love for Mary
in the way he has brought in a number of events about her around
the infancy stories of Jesus. Luke’s writing on the infancy of Jesus
is remarkable, and even long, compared with the other Evangelists.
(Lk 1-2). There is an emotional touch about Mary’s relationship
with the baby Jesus in the Gospel of Luke. Under such
circumstances it was quite easy for a tradition to develop that a
picture of the infant Jesus and a deeply reflective Mary clinging to
each other is from none other than the Evangelist Luke.
The figure of Mary in the above mentioned painting, eyes cast
down, a countenance of total surrender, and hands firmly clasped
to the child Jesus remind us of these texts in the Gospel of Luke.
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The first, “Let it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38);
and the second, “But Mary treasured all these things and pondered
them in her heart” (Lk 2:19), which is repeated as, “His mother
treasured all these things in her heart” (Lk 2:51).
