Crown of Immortality

What it is

The Crown of Immortality is a picture and a phrase rather than an object. Writers use it for a state of endless life, and artists give it shape in two ways: as a wreath of leaves, then as a ring of stars that can look like a crown, a tiara, a halo or an aureola, the glow painted around a holy figure. It belongs to religious and allegorical art, meaning pictures in which abstract qualities such as Eternity or Immortality appear as people. In a number of Baroque works the crown is held out toward the person it honours, marking that person as someone whose life is said to continue beyond death.

Where it comes from

Wreath crowns are older than the phrase. In ancient Egypt a wreath called the crown of justification was laid on the dead as a sign that they had beaten death, following the god Osiris, who was believed to rise again; examples are painted on mummy portraits from Fayum made under Roman rule. Greek contests gave laurel or olive wreaths to winning athletes and, in time, to poets. Roman generals celebrating a triumph wore laurel, and under the Empire that honour was kept for the imperial family. Gold-leaf wreaths were placed on people initiated into the mystery religions. Christian writers took up the expression from the early centuries; the earliest use is credited to Ignatius of Antioch, in 107.

How it is done

Crowning was an act. The wreath was set on the head, whether of a victor, a poet, a general, a dead person or an initiate, and the placing itself was called a crowning. At a Roman triumph a slave stood behind the general and repeated a reminder that he was mortal, so the honour carried a warning inside it. In pictures the act is shown rather than performed: a flying figure of Immortality holds out the starry crown, or a goddess lowers it onto someone's head, as in a painting by Tintoretto in which Venus crowns Ariadne.

Tools and materials

The materials named for wreath crowns are laurel, olive, palm, feathers, papyrus, roses and precious metals; gold leaf was used for wreaths buried with the dead. In Christian art the usual sign of a martyr is not a wreath at all but a palm frond. The star form is drawn as a plain circle, eight stars in Titian's painting even though Ovid gave nine. The Advent wreath is built from evergreen cuttings and holds candles.

What it is for

The crown stands for two kinds of survival at once. One is fame that outlasts the body: the general's glory, the poet's name, the martyr's memory. The other is endless life in heaven, the reward Christian writers promised to those who held firm to the end. Martyrs are described as athletes in a contest, with the crown as the prize at the finish. In allegorical paintings the same crown is offered to a patron or a royal house, flattering the sitter with the suggestion of lasting renown.

Who does it

Nobody is trained to make a Crown of Immortality. The phrase was shaped by early Christian writers, bishops and teachers later called the Church Fathers, who applied it to people killed for their faith. In art the crown is handled by painted figures: Immortality, Eternity, an angel or a goddess. The recipients named in texts are martyrs, among them Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna and Blandina at Lyon. Households take up the related ring of candles during Advent.

Peoples and places

Egypt, Greece and Rome supply the wreath customs, and Christian communities across Europe took over the idea of the crown as a heavenly reward. The allegorical version belongs mostly to Italy and Sweden: Rome, Venice, and two Swedish ceilings painted by David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl. The starry crown also appears in French neoclassical painting, in an allegory on the death of the Dauphin by Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée. Candle crowns on Saint Lucy's feast are worn in Nordic countries and in Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Iceland.

What people believe

Underneath the picture is a religious claim: that death can be beaten. Egyptian mourners set the wreath on the dead in imitation of Osiris, who was believed to rise. Initiates of the mystery religions were buried with gold wreaths. Christian writers read martyrdom as a contest in an arena, with Satan as the opponent and the crown as the prize; they pointed to New Testament passages about running a race, about a crown promised to those who endure trial, and about a crown of life. The starry version borrows from the tale of Ariadne, whose jewelled crown was said to become a constellation.

When it is done

The allegorical motif has no season of its own, but two Christian customs give it dates. Advent, the weeks before Christmas, is when some households keep a ring of evergreen and candles, read as a sign of God's eternity. Saint Lucy's feast on 13 December is marked with candle crowns in Nordic and Adriatic countries; until the calendar changed in the 1500s that date fell at the winter solstice.

How scholars and sceptics see it

Art historians date the starry crown as an allegorical device to Pietro da Cortona's ceiling for the Barberini palace in Rome, finished in 1639, where a flying figure of Immortality carries it. Earlier classical pictures of the crown are thought to have existed, but none survive, which leaves Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne of 1520 to 1523 as the oldest surviving image of the star circle. Its spread is tied to widely circulated prints of the Apocalypse by Albrecht Dürer and Jean Duvet.

Compare and confuse

The crown of stars is easily mixed up with a halo or aureola, the glow around a holy figure, and with the astral and celestial crowns of iconography. Its close relatives are the martyr's palm frond, the Advent ring, and the candle crowns of Saint Lucy's feast. The star circle itself comes from the Corona Borealis, the constellation said to be Ariadne's jewelled crown.

Law and persecution

The crown of immortality was given to people condemned by Roman authority. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, was sentenced to fight beasts in 107 and asked his friends not to rescue him. Polycarp of Smyrna was stabbed in 155 after an attempt to burn him failed. At Lyon in 177, Blandina, Maturus, Sanctus and Attalus were sent into the amphitheatre, and Eusebius recorded the day as one arranged for fighting beasts. Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, murdered in 1170, was described by Edward Grim as promised the same crown.

Today

The motif survives mainly in art and in church custom. Czesław Słania, a Polish engraver of stamps and banknotes, reproduced the Drottningholm ceiling on what is described as his thousandth stamp. Advent rings of candles remain a household practice for some Christians, and candle crowns are still worn for Saint Lucy.

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Good reading and sources

• Crown of Immortality on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data