oil on canvas

Velasquez: Saint Anthony the Great and Saint Paul the Anchorite

    The raven brings bread to St. Paul the Hermit and St. Antony

    Painting by Diego Velázquez (c. 1634) showing the raven bring bread.

    Jerome, Life of Paul the Hermit (10): "While talking they noticed with amazement a raven, which had settled onto a branch of a tree, and was now flying down until it laid a loaf of bread in front of them. They were amazed, but after it left Paul said, 'Behold, The loving and merciful Lord has sent us a meal. For the last sixty years I have always received half a loaf, but because you are here Christ has sent double rations.'"

    Comments

    From The Prado Museum website:

    The subject is drawn from the narration in Jacobo de la Voragine`s 13th-century Golden Legend of Saint Anthony the Abbot`s voyage to the Egyptian desert to visit Saint Paul, the first Christian hermit (4th century). Saint Anthony, whom Velázquez presents dressed in the black-hooded, brown habit of the Hospitallers of Saint Anthony, appears five times in the painting. In the background, he asks his way from a centaur and also converses with a satyr. In a hollow among boulders that recall Patinir`s huge, rocky Landscape with Saint Jerome (already in the Royal Collection at that time, and now at the Museo del Prado), he is depicted knocking on the holy Anchorite`s door. In the foreground, he converses with Saint Paul and is surprised by the raven that brings Paul his daily bread. The final episode is shown at the left: after hearing that Paul has died, he discovers two lions digging the hermit`s tomb.

    Velázquez based his depiction of the two saints` meeting on Dürer`s engraving of the same subject, although he must also have known Sánchez Coello`s painting for one of the two altars at the basilica of El Escorial. In his consideration of possible visual sources for this work, Diego Angulo (1946) observed that the breadth of the setting and the valley`s pale blue lighting recall the landscape of northern Madrid and were Velázquez`s own contribution. More recently (Brown), parallels have been drawn with frescoes of Roman landscapes by Pietro da Cortona at the Villa Sacchetti in Castelfusano, which Velázquez may have seen in 1630-1631. The application of a very thin coat of paint over a light-colored base generates notably luminous and translucent effects. Various pentimenti are clearly visible, for example, in the figure of Saint Paul and in Saint Anthony`s crosier. The top of this work originally ended in a semicircular arch (the two upper corners were added and painted when the canvas was lined, possibly in the 19th century), indicating that it was conceived for an altar. It was probably commissioned for the hermitage of San Pablo -one of several constructed in the gardens of Madrid`s buen Retiro Palace- whose altarpiece, now lost, was completed in May 1633 and included a sculpture of Saint Paul the Hermit by Italian artist Giovanni Antonio Ceroni. First documented in the hermitage of San Antonio de los Portugueses in 1701, this painting may have been moved there when the hermitage of San Pablo was renovated and redecorated between 1659 and 1661.

    Type
    Image
    License
    Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
    Date
    1634
    Medium
    Location
    Madrid, Prado Museum
    Image Credit

    Jusepe de Ribera: Saint Paul the Hermit

       

      Sānctus vērō Brendānus, cum appropinquāsset ad ōstium spēluncae ūnīus, dē alterā ēgressus est senex forās obviam sibi, dīcēns: “Ecce, quam bonum et quam iocundum habitāre frātrēs in ūnum.” (26.15).

      Comments

      Museo del Prado P001075

      From the Museo del Prado website:

      Saint Paul, the first hermit, is shown meditating before a skull in solitude. This work dates from the final stage of Ribera’s career, which, in contrast to the darkness of his early years, is a phase of greater brightness and a wider range of colors.

      Associated Passages
      Type
      Image
      License
      Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
      Date
      1640
      Medium
      Dimensions
      Height: 143 cm; Width: 143 cm
      Location
      Madrid, Prado Museum
      Image Credit

      Tiepolo: Neptune and the Winds

        The sketch illustrates a celebrated passage from Virgil's Aeneid describing how Neptune calmed the winds to save Aeneas from shipwreck. Neptune, his arm raised, commands the winds to desist. Jupiter stands in front of the portico of a circular temple. In 1764–66 Tiepolo decorated a room in the Palacio Real, Madrid, with an apotheosis of Aeneas; the sketch may be related to this project. (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

        Subjects
        License
        Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
        Date
        1696–1770
        Culture
        Medium
        Dimensions
        24 1/2 x 24 1/2 in. (62.2 x 62.2 cm)
        Location
        The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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