Showing posts with label Tobias. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tobias. Show all posts

01 Works, RELIGIOUS ART - Interpretation of the Bible!, With Footnotes - 95

Giovanni Biliverti, (1585–1644)
The Archangel Raphael Refusing Tobias's Gift, c. 1612
Oil on canvas
Height: 175 cm (68.9 in). Width: 146 cm (57.5 in).
Pitti Palace

The subject comes from the Book of Tobit , one of the Apocryphal books in the Old Testament, and shows the final scene in the story of how Tobit, a blind old man, was healed by the gall of a fish. This fish had been caught by his son Tobias on the orders of the Archangel Raphael. But Raphael presented himself to Tobit's family as a simple traveller, and the old man wished to thank him in the fullness of his joy at the return of his sight. The angel refused all the offered treasures and revealed his identity. More on this painting


In Biliverti's painting Tobias restrains the angel, pulling at the edge of his cloak, and begs him to take the treasures which they have taken out of a round bronze vessel. Full of colour, this large canvas reveals the artist's skill at painting texture - the fabrics, fur and particularly the heavy gold chain with its large pearls.

Giovanni Biliverti,  (Florence, 25 August 1585 – Florence, 16 July 1644) was an Italian painter of the late-Mannerism and early-Baroque period, active mainly in his adoptive city of Florence, as well as Rome. Biliverti was born as Jan Bilevelt. After his father’s death in 1603, Giovanni worked in the studio of Lodovico Cigoli, following him in April 1604 till 1607 to Rome. There he worked in projects approved by Pope Clement VIII.


In 1609 Bilivert joined the Medici-sponsored guild of artists, the Accademia del Disegno in Florence. Bilivert was employed by Cosimo II de' Medici from 1611 until 1621, as a designer for works in pietra durai. Late in life, he became blind. Among his pupils were Cecco Bravo, Agostino Melissi, Baccio del Bianco, and Orazio Fidani. He painted a Hagar in the Desert once in the Hermitage and a Christ and the Samaritan Woman once in the Belvedere in Vienna. More on Giovanni Biliverti







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14 Paintings, scenes from the Bible, by The Old Masters, with footnotes # 34

Nicolas Poussin
Santa Francesca Romana, c. 1657
Oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre  (France - Paris) 

Frances of Rome, Obl.S.B., (Italian: Santa Francesca Romana) (1384 – March 9, 1440) is an Italian saint who was a wife, mother, mystic, organizer of charitable services and a Benedictine oblate who founded a religious community of oblates, who share a common life without religious vows.

Frances was born in 1384 in Rome to a wealthy and aristocratic couple, and christened at the Church of St. Agnes on the famed Piazza Navona. When she was about the age of twelve, her parents forced her to marry Lorenzo Ponziani, commander of the papal troops of Rome and member of an extremely wealthy family. Although the marriage had been arranged, it was a happy one, lasting for forty years.

Frances visited the poor and took care of the sick, inspiring other wealthy women of the city to do the same. Soon after her marriage, Frances fell seriously ill. Her husband called a man in who dabbled in magic, but Frances drove him away, and later recounted to Vannozza that St. Alexis had appeared to her and cured her.

Giovanni Battista Gaulli (1639–1709) 
Frances of Rome giving alms, c. 1675
Oil on canvas
Getty museum, Los Angeles

Giovanni Battista Gaulli (8 May 1639 – 2 April 1709), also known as Baciccio, was an Italian artist working in the High Baroque and early Rococo periods. He is best known for his grand illusionistic vault frescos in the Church of the Gesù in Rome, Italy. His work was influenced by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Gaulli was born in Genoa, and initially apprenticed with Luciano Borzone. In mid-17th century. Gaulli's Genoa was a cosmopolitan Italian artistic center open to both commercial and artistic enterprises from north European countries. Gaulli's earliest influences would have come from an eclectic mix of these foreign painters and other local artists whose warm palette Gaulli adopted. In the 1660s, he experimented with the cooler palette and linear style of Bolognese classicism.

He first introduced him to Gianlorenzo Bernini in Rome, who promoted him. He found patrons among the Genoese, and was accepted into the Roman artists' guild, where he was to later hold several offices. The next year, he received his first public commission for an altarpiece, in the church of San Rocco, Rome. He received many private commissions for mythological and religious works.

At his height, Gaulli was one of Rome's most esteemed portrait painters. Gaulli died in Rome, shortly after 26 March 1709, probably 2 April. More

Giovanni Battista Gaulli (1639–1709) 
An Apostle
Oil on canvas
74 by 60.5 cm.; 29 1/8 by 23 3/4 in.
Private Collection

When her mother-in-law died, Frances became mistress of the household. During a time of flood and famine, she turned part of the family's country estate into a hospital, and distributed food and clothing to the poor. 

During a period of forced exile, much of Lorenzo's property and possessions were destroyed. In the course of one occupation of Rome by Neapolitan forces in the early part of the century, he was wounded so severely that he never fully recovered. Frances nursed him throughout the rest of his life.

Frances experienced other sorrows in the course of her marriage with Lorenzo Ponziani. They lost two children to the plague. Chaos ruled the city in that period of neglect by the pope and the ongoing warfare between him and the various forces competing for power on the Italian peninsula devastated the city. The city of Rome was largely in ruins. Frances again opened her home as a hospital and drove her wagon through the countryside to collect wood for fire and herbs for medicine. It is said she had the gift of healing, and more than sixty cases were attested to during the canonization proceedings.

Giovanni Antonio Galli, called Spadarino (1585 - 1652)
Santa Francesca Romana con l’angelo, c. 1600s
Oil on canvas

Italian painter, Giovanni Antonio Galli, called Spadarino (1585 - 1652). He was the son of a swordsmith or frabbricante di spade, earning him the moniker, "Spadarino", or roughly "Little Sword". His family were from Florence. He was recorded alongside Bartolomeo Manfredi, Jusepe de Ribera, Cecco del Caravaggio and Carlo Saraceni as one of the closest of Caravaggio's followers c. 1620.

He is documented in 1603 as "painter in the Palazzo San Marco, in the house of Cardinal Dolfin" and was still serving the Cardinal in 1620. The few other documents that relate to him attest to his presence in Rome in 1597, 1617, 1620, 1638, 1645 and 1651.

His works are of concentrated simplicity, remote from the violence of Caravaggio and characterized rather by the tender relationship between the figures and the softness and delicacy of the shadows. More

On August 15, 1425, the feast of the Assumption of Mary, she founded the Olivetan Oblates of Mary, a confraternity of pious women. In March 1433, she founded a monastery at Tor de' Specchi, near the Campidoglio, in order to allow for a common life by those members of the confraternity. This monastery remains the only house of the Institute. The community later became known simply as the Oblates of St. Frances of Rome.

Frances herself remained in her own home, nursing her husband for the last seven years of his life from wounds he had received in battle. When he died in 1436, she moved into the monastery and became the superior. She died in 1440 and was buried in Santa Maria Nova. More

Michelangelo Caravaggio
St. Jerome writing, c. 1607
Oil on canvas
Height: 117 cm (46.1 in). Width: 157 cm (61.8 in).
St. John's Co-Cathedral


Jerome (c.  347 – 30 September 420) was a priest, confessor, theologian and historian. He was the son of Eusebius, born at Stridon, a village near Emona on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia, then part of northeastern Italy. He is best known for his translation of most of the Bible into Latin (the translation that became known as the Vulgate), and his commentaries on the Gospels. His list of writings is extensive.
The protégé of Pope Damasus I, who died in December of 384, Jerome was known for his teachings on Christian moral life, especially to those living in cosmopolitan centers such as Rome. In many cases, he focused his attention to the lives of women and identified how a woman devoted to Jesus should live her life. This focus stemmed from his close patron relationships with several prominent female ascetics who were members of affluent senatorial families.
He is recognised as a Saint and Doctor of the Church by the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Church, and the Anglican Communion.[6] His feast day is 30 September. More

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (29 September 1571 in Caravaggio – 18 July 1610) was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1592 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on Baroque painting.
Caravaggio trained as a painter in Milan under Simone Peterzano who had himself trained under Titian. In his twenties Caravaggio moved to Rome where there was a demand for paintings to fill the many huge new churches and palazzos being built at the time. It was also a period when the Church was searching for a stylistic alternative to Mannerism in religious art that was tasked to counter the threat of Protestantism. Caravaggio's innovation was a radical naturalism that combined close physical observation with a dramatic, even theatrical, use of chiaroscuro which came to be known as tenebrism (the shift from light to dark with little intermediate value).

He gained attention in the art scene of Rome in 1600 with the success of his first public commissions, the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew. Thereafter he never lacked commissions or patrons, yet he handled his success poorly. He was jailed on several occasions, vandalized his own apartment, and ultimately had a death sentence pronounced against him by the Pope after killing a young man, possibly unintentionally, on May 29, 1606. He fled from Rome with a price on his head. He was involved in a brawl in Malta in 1608, and another in Naples in 1609, possibly a deliberate attempt on his life by unidentified enemies. This encounter left him severely injured. A year later, at the age of 38, he died under mysterious circumstances in Porto Ercole in Tuscany, reportedly from a fever while on his way to Rome to receive a pardon.

Famous while he lived, Caravaggio was forgotten almost immediately after his death, and it was only in the 20th century that his importance to the development of Western art was rediscovered. More



Roman School, circa 1700
The Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist 
Oil on copper
21.2 x 16.2cm (8 3/8 x 6 3/8in)
Private Collection

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553)
Virgin and Child adored by the infant St John, circa 1512
Oil and tempera on lime
75.9 × 59.4 cm (29.9 × 23.4 in)
Private Collection

Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1472 – 16 October 1553) was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his portraits, both of German princes and those of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, whose cause he embraced with enthusiasm, becoming a close friend of Martin Luther. He also painted religious subjects, first in the Catholic tradition, and later trying to find new ways of conveying Lutheran religious concerns in art. He continued throughout his career to paint nude subjects drawn from mythology and religion. He had a large workshop and many works exist in different versions; his son Lucas Cranach the Younger, and others, continued to create versions of his father's works for decades after his death. Lucas Cranach the Elder has been considered the most successful German artist of his time. More

North Italian School, late 16th Century, after Tiziano Vecelli, called Titian
Saint Peter Martyr 
Oil on canvas
245.5 x 150.5cm (96 5/8 x 59 1/4in).
Private Collection

Saint Peter of Verona O.P. (1206 – April 6, 1252), also known as Saint Peter Martyr, was a 13th-century Italian Catholic priest. He was a Dominican friar and a celebrated preacher. He served as Inquisitor in Lombardy, was killed by an assassin, and was canonized as a Catholic saint 11 months after his death, making this the fastest canonization in history.

He was born in the city of Verona into a family perhaps sympathetic to the Cathar heresy. Peter went to a Catholic school, and later to the University of Bologna, where he is said to have maintained his orthodoxy and at the age of fifteen, met Saint Dominic. Peter joined the Order of the Friars Preachers (Dominicans) and became a celebrated preacher throughout northern and central Italy.

From the 1230s on, Peter preached against heresy, and especially Catharism, which had many adherents in thirteenth-century Northern Italy. Because of this, a group of Milanese Cathars conspired to kill him. They hired an assassin, one Carino of Balsamo. Carino's accomplice was Manfredo Clitoro of Giussano. On April 6, 1252, when Peter was returning from Como to Milan, the two assassins followed Peter to a lonely spot near Barlassina, and there killed him and mortally wounded his companion, a fellow friar named Dominic.

Carino struck Peter's head with an axe and then attacked Domenico. Peter rose to his knees, and recited the first article of the Symbol of the Apostles (the Apostle's Creed). Offering his blood as a sacrifice to God, according to legend, he dipped his fingers in it and wrote on the ground: "Credo in Unum Deum", the first words of the Nicene Creed. The blow that killed him cut off the top of his head, but the testimony given at the inquest into his death confirms that he began reciting the Creed when he was attacked.

Dominic was carried to Meda, where he died five days afterwards. More

Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio, or Titian (1488/1490 – 27 August 1576), was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno (in Veneto, Republic of Venice). During his lifetime he was often called da Cadore, taken from the place of his birth.

Recognized by his contemporaries as "The Sun Amidst Small Stars", Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept with portraits, landscape backgrounds, and mythological and religious subjects. His painting methods, particularly in the application and use of color, would exercise a profound influence not only on painters of the Italian Renaissance, but on future generations of Western art.

During the course of his long life, Titian's artistic manner changed drastically but he retained a lifelong interest in color. Although his mature works may not contain the vivid, luminous tints of his early pieces, their loose brushwork and subtlety of tone are without precedent in the history of Western painting. More

CARAVAGESQUE SCHOOL
THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPERDS, CIRCA 1640
Oil on canvas
180 x 125 cm ; 70 7/8  by 49 1/4  in
Private Collection

The Adoration of the Shepherds, in the Nativity of Jesus in art, is a scene in which shepherds are near witnesses to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, arriving soon after the actual birth. It is often combined in art with the Adoration of the Magi, in which case it is typically just referred to by the latter title. The Annunciation to the Shepherds, when they are summoned by an angel to the scene, is a distinct subject.

The Adoration of the Shepherds is based on the account in the Luke 2, not reported by any other Canonical Gospel, which states that an angel appeared to a group of shepherds, saying that Christ had been born in Bethlehem, followed by a crowd of angels saying Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth to men of good will. This Annunciation to the shepherds forms a distinct subject in Christian art and is sometimes included in a Nativity scene as a peripheral feature (even though it occurs prior to the adoration itself), as in the 1485 scene by Domenico Ghirlandaio, where it can be seen in the upper left corner. Ghirlandaio also shows a procession of Magi about to arrive with their gifts. More

The Caravaggisti (or the "Caravagesques") were stylistic followers of the 16th-century Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. His influence on the new Baroque style that eventually emerged from Mannerism was profound. Caravaggio never established a workshop as most other painters did, and thus had no school to spread his techniques. Nor did he ever set out his underlying philosophical approach to art, the psychological realism which can only be deduced from his surviving work. But it can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Bernini, and Rembrandt. Famous while he lived, Caravaggio himself was forgotten almost immediately after his death. Many of his paintings were reascribed to his followers, such as The Taking of Christ, which was attributed to Honthorst until 1990. It was only in the 20th century that his importance to the development of Western art was rediscovered. In the 1920s Roberto Longhi once more placed him in the European tradition: "Ribera, Vermeer, La Tour and Rembrandt could never have existed without him. And the art of Delacroix, Courbet and Manet would have been utterly different". The influential Bernard Berenson stated: "With the exception of Michelangelo, no other Italian painter exercised so great an influence." More


Jacob de Wet (I) (fl. 1632–1675)
German: Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, 2 Third 17C.
Color on panel
50 × 75.5 cm (19.7 × 29.7 in)
Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest)

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (also called the Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard or the Parable of the Generous Employer) is a parable of Jesus which appears in the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.

In Matthew Matt 20:1–16, Jesus says that any "laborer" who accepts the invitation to the work in the vineyard (said by Jesus to represent the Kingdom of Heaven), no matter how late in the day, will receive an equal reward with those who have been faithful the longest. More

For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. So when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first. 

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669)
The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. 1637
Oil on panel
The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669) was a Dutch painter and etcher. He is generally considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in European art and the most important in Dutch history. His contributions to art came in a period of great wealth and cultural achievement that historians call the Dutch Golden Age when Dutch Golden Age painting, although in many ways antithetical to the Baroque style that dominated Europe, was extremely prolific and innovative, and gave rise to important new genres in painting.
In his paintings and prints he exhibited knowledge of classical iconography, which he molded to fit the requirements of his own experience; thus, the depiction of a biblical scene was informed by Rembrandt's knowledge of the specific text, his assimilation of classical composition, and his observations of Amsterdam's Jewish population. Because of his empathy for the human condition, he has been called "one of the great prophets of civilization. More


And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny. And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house, Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day. But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen... — Matthew 20:1–16, King James Version

Jacob Willemszoon de Wet or Jacob Willemsz. de Wet the Elder (c. 1610 – between 1675 and 1691) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose works were largely influenced by Rembrandt. De Wet was born and died in Haarlem. Little is known of his early life. Houbraken mentions him in passing as an art dealer of Haarlem in his biographical sketch of Philips Wouwerman, referring to him as Jan de Wet. 

De Wet left a notebook that mentions a total of 34 pupils, most famously Paulus Potter. Other notable pupils were Job Adriaensz Berckheyde, Adriaen Jansz Kraen, Johann Philip Lemke, Jan Vermeer van Haarlem I (not to be confused with Vermeer of Delft), Jacob de Wet II, and Kort Withold. He became a member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1632. Judging from the number of pupils, and the difficulties his son Jacob II had with launching an independent career, it seems that De Wet had a large and successful practise in Haarlem. His son Jacob II was the only one of 5 children who also became a painter. More


Master of the Prodigal Son (active Antwerp, mid 16th Century)
The Story of Tobias 
oil on panel
86.2 x 120.8cm (33 15/16 x 47 9/16in)
Private Collection

A short story possibly dating from Persian times is the book of Tobit, named after the father of its hero. From the fragments of the book discovered at Qumrān, scholars now know that the original form of the name was Tobi. Tobit was from the Hebrew tribe of Naphtali and lived as an exile in Nineveh; his son was Tobias. Obeying the tenets of Jewish piety, Tobit buried the corpses of his fellow Israelites who had been executed. One day, when he buried a dead man, the warm dung of sparrows fell in his eyes and blinded him. His family subsequently suffered from poverty, but then Tobit remembered that he had once left a deposit of silver at Rages (today Teheran) in Media. He sent his son Tobias along with a companion, who was in reality the angel Raphael under the guise of an Israelite, to retrieve the deposit. During the journey, while Tobias was washing in the Tigris, a fish threatened to devour his foot. Upon instructions from Raphael, Tobias caught the fish and removed its gall, heart, and liver, since it was believed that the smoke from the heart and liver had the power to exorcise demons and that ointment made from the gall would cure blindness. On the way he stopped at Ecbatana (in Persia), where Raguel, a member of Tobias’ family, lived. His daughter Sarah had been married seven times, but the men had been slain by the demon Asmodeus on the wedding night, before they had lain with her. On the counsel of Raphael, Tobias asked to marry Raguel’s daughter, and on the wedding night Tobias put Asmodeus to flight through the stench of the burning liver and heart of the fish. Raphael went to Rages and returned with the deposit. When he returned with his young wife and Raphael to Nineveh, Tobias restored his father’s sight by applying the gall of the fish to his eyes. Raphael then disclosed that he was one of God’s seven angels and ascended into heaven. More


The Master of the Prodigal Son. Named after the large altarpiece now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna which depicts the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Master of the present work comes very close in style to both Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502-50) and Frans Floris (1517-1570). This stylistic affinity suggests that the artist was active in Antwerp during the second quarter of the 16th Century. The master often treated subjects from the Old Testament. More

He was born in Antwerp and is considered to have run a workshop there with several pupils. His name is derived from a painting in Vienna. He is known for landscapes and religious works, and possibly travelled to Rome. Though a monogram of "LK" was discovered in one of his paintings, to conclude that this person was the Leonart Kroes mentioned as teacher in Karel van Mander's biography of Gillis van Coninxloo is incorrect. More


Francesco Solimena (Canale di Serino 1657-1747 Barra di Napoli)
Saints Tecla, Archelaa and Susanna being taken to their martyrdom 
Oil on canvas
51.6 x 62.5cm (20 5/16 x 24 5/8in)
Private Collection

St. Archelais, St. Thecla and St. Susanna (d. 293) were Christian virgins of the Romagna region of Italy. During the persecution by Diocletian in the third century, these holy virgins dressed themselves in men’s clothing, cut their hair and went to the Italian province of Campagna. Settling in a remote area, they continued to pursue an ascetical life of fasting and prayer. They received the gift of healing from God, treated the local inhabitants, and converted many pagans to Christ.

When the governor of the district heard of these healings, he had the holy women brought to Salerno. He threatened St. Archelais with torture and death if she did not offer sacrifice to idols. With firm hope in the Lord, the saint refused and denounced the folly of worshipping soulless statues. The governor ordered the saint to be torn apart by hungry lions, but the beasts meekly lay at her feet. In a rage, the governor ordered the lions to be killed, and locked the holy virgins in prison.

In the morning, having suspended St. Archelais from a tree, the torturers began to rake her with iron utensils and pour hot tar on the wounds. The saint prayed even more loudly, and suddenly a light shone over her and a voice was heard, “Fear not, for I am with you.”

St. Archelais was defended by the power of God. When they wanted to crush her with an immense stone, an angel pushed it to the other side, and it crushed the torturers instead. A judge ordered the soldiers to behead the holy virgins, but the soldiers did not dare to put their hands upon the saints. Sts. Archelais, Thekla and Susanna then said to the soldiers, “If you do not fulfill the command, you shall have no respect from us.” Thus, the holy martyrs were beheaded in 293. More

F. Solimena. Ss. Archelais, Thecla and Susanna 
Church of San Giorgio (Salerno)


Francesco Solimena (October 4, 1657 – April 3, 1747) was a prolific Italian painter of the Baroque era, one of an established family of painters and draughtsmen. He received early training from his father, Angelo Solimena, with whom he executed a Paradise for the cathedral of Nocera and a Vision of St. Cyril of Alexandria for the church of San Domenico at Solofra.

He settled in Naples in 1674, there he worked in the studio of Francesco di Maria and later Giacomo del Po. He apparently had taken the clerical orders, but was patronized early on, and encouraged to become an artist by Cardinal Vincenzo Orsini (later Pope Benedict XIII). By the 1680s, he had independent fresco commissions, and his active studio came to dominate Neapolitan painting from the 1690s through the first four decades of the 18th century. He modeled his art—for he was a highly conventional painter—after the Roman Baroque masters. Solimena painted many frescoes in Naples, altarpieces, celebrations of weddings and courtly occasions, mythological subjects, characteristically chosen for their theatrical drama, and portraits. His settings are suggested with a few details—steps, archways, balustrades, columns—concentrating attention on figures and their draperies, caught in pools and shafts of light. Art historians take pleasure in identifying the models he imitated or adapted in his compositions. His numerous preparatory drawings often mix media, combining pen-and-ink, chalk and watercolor washes. More

AFTER BARTOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO (Spanish, 1617-1682) 
Virgin and Child 
Oil on canvas 
157 x 107cm 
Private Collection

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (born late December 1617, baptized January 1, 1618 – April 3, 1682) was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children. These lively, realist portraits of flower girls, street urchins, and beggars constitute an extensive and appealing record of the everyday life of his times. More

Francesco Rizzo da Santacroce (active Venice, 1507-circa 1545)
The Holy Family with a female martyr saint 
oil on panel
68.8 x 98.2cm (27 1/16 x 38 11/16in).
Private Collection

The angular treatment of the drapery in the present work, along with the dramatic tonality of the sky suggest this is a typical, late work by Francesco Rizzo da Santacroce. A further characteristic of this Holy Family with a female martyr Saint is the underdrawing which is visible throughout. This peculiarity is seen in works by the artist such as his Holy Family with Saint Simon. In his article, This may simply be the result of the way the artist put together his pigments. The underdrawing is itself notable for its lack of hatching which may suggest that the artist regularly used cartoons to repeat his compositions, as his teacher Francesco di Simone da Santacroce (Santa Croce circa 1470-1508 Venice) had done before him. More

Francesco Rizzo da Santacroce, also known as simply Francesco da Santacroce or Francesco di Bernardo de' Vecchi Da Santa Croce (active 1507 – 1545) was an Italian painter of the Renaissance period, active mainly in Bergamo and Venice. He initially trained with Francesco di Simone da Santacroce, an ultimately inherited this master's studio. He was later a pupil or influenced by Giovanni Bellini or Vittore Carpaccio. He was born in the Sestiere of Santa Croce in Venice, or his family came from the hamlet of Santa Croce in Bergamo.

In 1507, he painted an Altarpiece depicting St Peter for the parish church of Lerina. By 1519, he was working in Venice, where he painted for San Cristoforo, the church of the Dominicans in the Zattere, San Francesco della Vigna (Last Supper), and Santa Maria degli Angeli, Murano (Virgin and St Jerome and Jermiah moved to San Pietro). He also painted an altarpiece for the parish church of Chirignago.

Girolamo and Pietro Paolo Rizzo were also painters and part of the same family. More





Acknowledgement: Bonhams, 

Images are copyright of their respective owners, assignees or others

20 Sculptures, scenes from the Bible, by Johann Georg Pinsel, 6

Johann Georg Pinsel 
Abraham’s Sacrifice. c. 1760 
(from a church in the village of Hodovytsya). 
Museum of Sacral Sculpture, Lviv.

According to the Bible, God commands Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. After Isaac is bound to an altar, the angel of God stops Abraham at the last minute, saying "now I know you fear God." At this point, Abraham sees a ram caught in some nearby bushes and sacrifices the ram instead of Isaac.
The event occurred at "the mount of the LORD". The Books of Chronicles identify the location of this event as the hill on which Solomon was said to later build the Temple, now believed to be the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. More

Johann Georg Pinsel (1707-1762) was a Baroque-Rococo sculptor of German or Czech origin active in Red Ruthenia (then in Poland, now Ukraine).
Johann Georg Pinsel 
Samson opening the lion's mouth, c. 1758
Wood, polychrome and gilding
Museum of Sacral Sculpture, Lviv.
As a young man, Samson, the last of the Old Testament Judges of Israel, demonstrated his strength by slaying a lion with his bare hands. The subject’s relationship to the mythological story of Hercules and the Nemean lion and its mingling of classical and biblical iconographical traditions.
Johann Georg Pinsel 
Samson opening the lion's mouth, c. 1758
Wood, polychrome and gilding
Museum of Sacral Sculpture, Lviv.
Detail
Biographical details about him are scarce. He was discovered by J. Bołoz Antoniewicz and appeared in scholarly literature in 1923 in the monograph of Władysław Żyła "Dominican church and monastery in Lviv". His first and second name, some information about his family and approximate date of death were only established in 1993, with the discovery of registers of the Buchach Roman Catholic parish. The place and exact date of his birth remain unknown.
Johann Georg Pinsel 
Saint John the Evangelist, c. 1758 
Wood, polychrome and gilding, 
National Gallery of Art, Lviv
John the Evangelist is traditionally regarded as the author of the Gospel of John and other Johannine literature in the New Testament: the three Epistles of John and the Book of Revelation. More
Pinsel came to the region of Lviv most probably around 1750 and became court artist to Mikołaj Bazyli Potocki. He settled in Buchach and in 1751 married Marianna Majewska, with whom he had two sons. He closely collaborated with the renowned architect Bernard Meretyn His student was Maciej Polejowski.

Johann Georg Pinsel
Grieving Madonna, c. 1758
Wood, polychrome and gilding, 
National Gallery of Art, Lviv

Our Lady of Sorrows, the Sorrowful Mother or Mother of Sorrows, and Our Lady of Piety, Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows or Our Lady of the Seven Dolours are names by which the Blessed Virgin Mary is referred to in relation to sorrows in her life. As Mater Dolorosa, it is also a key subject for Marian art in the Catholic Church.

The Seven Sorrows of Mary are a popular Roman Catholic devotion. In common religious Catholic imagery, the Blessed Virgin Mary is portrayed in a sorrowful and lacrimating affect, with seven daggers piercing her heart, often bleeding. Devotional prayers that consist of meditation began to elaborate on her Seven Sorrows based on the prophecy of Simeon. Common examples of piety under this title are Servite rosary, or the Chaplet of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady and the Seven Joys of Mary and more recently, "Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary". More

Johann Georg Pinsel
Grieving Madonna, c. 1758
Detail
Pinsel's works include sculptures and decorations of the Buchach townhall (1750s), the Trinitarian church (1756-1757) and the St. George's Cathedral (headquarters of Greek Catholics) in Lviv, (1759-1761), interiors of the Roman Catholic churches in: Monastyryska (1761), Horodenka (1752-1755) and Hodovytsia (1757-1758), sculptures in the Roman Catholic parish church in Budaniv.
Johann Georg Pinsel
New Testament Avatar, c. 1758
Wood, polychrome and gilding, 
National Gallery of Art, Lviv
Appearances of the "angel of the Lord" are often presented as a visible manifestation to humankind of God or a god. in Genesis the angel of God says, "I am the God of Beth-el"; in Exodus the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the flame of fire, and then the Lord says to him: "I am the God of thy father". At times the angel of the Lord speaks in such a way as to assume authority over previous promises. More
His only work that survived intact, in its original spatial arrangement, is the facade of the St. George's Cathedral. His sculptural complexes in the churches in Horodenka and Monastyryska were almost completely destroyed between 1939 and 1989. The figures of the high altar in Hodovytsia have been saved thanks to efforts of the staff of the Lviv Art Gallery. 
Johann Georg Pinsel
Saint Anna, c. 1761
Wood, polychrome and gilding, 
National Gallery of Art, Lviv

Saint Anne (also known as Ann or Anna) of David's house and line, was the mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus Christ, according to apocryphal Christian and Islamic tradition. Mary's mother is not named in the canonical gospels, nor in the Qur'an. Anne's name and that of her husband Joachim come only from New Testament apocrypha, of which the Protoevangelium of James (written perhaps around 150) seems to be the earliest that mentions them. More

Johann Georg Pinsel
Adoration of an Angel,  c. 1758
Wood, polychrome and gilding, 
Museum of Sacral Sculpture, Lviv

Johann Georg Pinsel
Adoration of an Angel,  c. 1758
Wood, polychrome and gilding, 
Museum of Sacral Sculpture, Lviv
Detail

Johann Georg Pinsel
Prophet Aaron, c. 1760-1761
Wood, polychrome and gilding, 
National Gallery of Art, Lviv

In the Hebrew Bible and the Quran, Aaron was the older brother of Moses and a prophet of God. Unlike Moses, who grew up in the Egyptian royal court, Aaron and his elder sister Miriam remained with their kinsmen in the eastern border-land of Egypt. When Moses first confronted the Egyptian king about the Israelites, Aaron served as his brother's spokesman to Pharaoh. Part of the Law that Moses received from God at Sinai granted Aaron the priesthood for himself and his male descendants, and he became the first High Priest of the Israelites. Various dates for his life have been proposed, ranging from approximately 1600 to 1200 BC. Aaron died before the Israelites crossed the Jordan river and he was buried on Mount Hor. More

Johann Georg Pinsel
Jesus among the Twelve scribes, approx. 1758 
Wood, polychrome and gilding, 
National Gallery of Art, Lviv

Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover.  When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom.  After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it.  Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.  Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers.  When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them. More

Johann Georg Pinsel
Jesus among the Twelve scribes", approx. 1758 
Wood, polychrome and gilding, 
National Gallery of Art, Lviv
Detail

Johann Georg Pinsel
Jesus among the Twelve scribes", approx. 1758 
Wood, polychrome and gilding, 
National Gallery of Art, Lviv
Detail

Johann Georg Pinze
Saint Vincent

Saint Vincent of Saragossa was a deacon of the Church of Saragossa. He is the patron saint of Lisbon and Valencia. He was born at Huesca and martyred under the Emperor Diocletian around the year 304. The earliest account of Vincent's martyrdom is in a carmen (lyric poem) written by the poet Prudentius, who wrote a series of lyric poems, Peristephanon ("Crowns of Martyrdom"), on Hispanic and Roman martyrs.

He was born at Huesca, near Saragossa, Spain sometime during the latter part of the 3rd century. Vincent spent most of his life in the city of Saragossa, where he was educated and ordained to the diaconate by Bishop Valerius of Saragossa, who commissioned Vincent to preach throughout the diocese. Because Valerius suffered from a speech impediment, Vincent acted as his spokesman.

When the Roman Emperor Diocletian began persecuting Christians in Spain, both were brought before the Roman governor, Dacian in Valencia. Vincent and his bishop Valerius were confined to the prison of Valencia. Though he was finally offered release if he would consign Scripture to the fire, Vincent refused. Speaking on behalf of his bishop, he informed the judge that they were ready to suffer everything for their faith, and that they could pay no heed either to threats or promises.

His outspoken manner so angered the governor that Vincent was inflicted every sort of torture on him. He was stretched on the rack and his flesh torn with iron hooks. Then his wounds were rubbed with salt and he was burned alive upon a red-hot gridiron. Finally he was cast into prison and laid on a floor scattered with broken pottery, where he died. During his martyrdom he preserved such peace and tranquillity that it astonished his jailer, who repented from his sins and was converted. Vincent's dead body was thrown into the sea in a sack, but was later recovered by the Christians and his veneration immediately spread throughout the Church. The aged bishop Valerius was exiled. More

Johann Georg Pinze
Saint Elizabeth, c.  (1755)

Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, T.O.S.F. ( 7 July 1207 – 17 November 1231), also known as Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia, was a princess of the Kingdom of Hungary, Landgravine of Thuringia, Germany, and a greatly venerated Catholic saint who was an early member of the Third Order of St. Francis, by which she is honored as its patroness. Elizabeth was married at the age of 14, and widowed at 20. After her husband's death she sent her children away and regained her dowry, using the money to build a hospital where she herself served the sick. She became a symbol of Christian charity after her death at the age of 24 and was quickly canonized. More

Johann Georg Pinze
Saint Francis Borgia, 1753

Saint Francis Borgia, S.J., 4th Duke of Gandía, (28 October 1510 – 30 September 1572) was a Grandee of Spain, a Spanish Jesuit, and third Superior General of the Society of Jesus. He was canonized on 20 June 1670 by Pope Clement X. He was born in Duchy of Gandía, Valencia. His father was Juan Borgia, 3rd Duke of Gandía, the son of Giovanni Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia). 

Although as a child he was very pious and wished to become a monk, his family sent him instead to the court of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (who was also King Charles I of Spain), where he was welcomed as a kinsman. He distinguished himself there, accompanying the Emperor on several campaigns.

In September 1529, he married a Portuguese noblewoman in Madrid, Leonor de Castro Mello y Meneses. They had eight children. In 1539, he convoyed the corpse of Isabella of Portugal, Philip II of Spain's mother, to her burial place in Granada. In that same year (1539), he became Viceroy of Catalonia, replacing Fadrique de Portugal y Noroña, though he was only 29.

In 1543 upon the death of his father, Francis became the 4th Duke of Gandía. Francis’ diplomatic abilities came into question when his attempt to arrange a marriage between Prince Philip and the Princess of Portugal failed, thus ending an attempt to bring these two countries together and resulting in his retirement. By then 33 years old he had retired to his native place and devoted himself to religious activities. More

Johann Georg Pinze
St. Joachim, c. 1755

Joachim was the husband of Saint Anne and the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus, according to the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican traditions. The story of Joachim and Anne first appears in the apocryphal Gospel of James. Joachim and Anne are not mentioned in the Bible. More

Johann Georg Pinze
Saint Felix with Child (1755)

Felix of Cantalice, (1515-1587) Born to peasant parents in Cantalice, Italy, in the central Italian region of Lazio. Canonized by Pope Clement XI in 1712, he was the first Capuchin friar to be named a saint. Felix entered the newly founded Capuchin friars as a lay brother at the Citta Ducale friary in the municipality of Anticoli Corrado. It is said that he was well noted for his piety. In 1547 he was sent to Rome as quaestor of the Capuchin Friary of St. Bonaventure, where he spent his remaining 40 years begging alms to help in the friars' work of aiding the sick and the poor.

In Rome, Brother Felix became a familiar sight, wandering barefoot through the streets, with a sack slung over his shoulders, knocking on doors to seek donations. He received permission from his superiors to help the needy, especially widows with many children. It is said that his begging sack was as bottomless as his heart. Brother Felix blessed all benefactors and all those he met with a humble “Deo Gratias!” (thanks be to God!). Felix was so successful in his work that during the famine of 1580, the political leader of Rome asked the Capuchins if they would 'lend' Felix to them so he could collect food and provisions for the entire city. The Capuchins agreed and Felix embraced his new task.

The plain-spoken Brother Felix was a good friend of St. Philip Neri and an acquaintance of Charles Borromeo. Felix developed a reputation as a healer. As he got older, his superior ordered him to wear sandals to protect his health. Cardinal Santori had offered to use his influence to have the elderly Felix relieved of the difficult task of questing, but Felix refused. More

Johann Georg Pinze
Saint Tobias, (1755)

Saint Tobias, was one of a group of ten Christian soldiers in the imperial Roman army of Emperor Licinius who were martyred together for refusing to sacrifice to Roman gods. He was burned at the stake c.315 at Sebaste, Armenia

Johann Georg Pinzel
Saint Onuphrius, c. 1761

Saint Onuphrius was one of the Desert Fathers who made a great impression on Eastern spirituality in the third and fourth centuries, around the time that Christianity was emerging as the dominant faith of the Roman Empire. At this time many Christians were inspired to go out into the desert and live in prayer in the harsh environment of extreme heat and cold, with little to eat and drink, surrounded by all sorts of dangerous animals and robbers.[5]

It is uncertain in which century Onuphrius lived; the account of Paphnutius the Ascetic, who encountered him in the Egyptian desert, forms the sole source for our knowledge of the life of Saint Onuphrius. A tradition states that Onuphrius had studied jurisprudence and philosophy before becoming a monk near Thebes and then a hermit.

According to Paphnutius’s account, Paphnutius undertook a pilgrimage to study the hermits’ way of life and to determine whether it was for him. Wandering in the desert for 16 days, on the 17th day, Paphnutius came across a wild figure covered in hair, wearing a loincloth of leaves. Frightened, Paphnutius ran away, up a mountain, but the figure called him back, shouting, “Come down to me, man of God, for I am a man also, dwelling in the desert for the love of God.”

Turning back, Paphnutius talked to the wild figure, who introduced himself as Onuphrius and explained that he had once been a monk at a large monastery in the Thebaid but who had now lived as a hermit for 70 years, enduring extreme thirst, hunger, and discomforts. He said that it was his guardian angel who had brought him to this desolate place. Onuphrius took Paphnutius to his cell, and they spoke until sunset, when bread and water miraculously appeared outside of the hermit's cell.

They spent the night in the prayer, and in the morning Paphnutius discovered that Onuphrius was near death. Paphnutius, distressed, asked the hermit if he should occupy Onuphrius’ cell after the hermit’s death, but Onuphrius told him, "That may not be, thy work is in Egypt with thy brethren." Onuphrius asked Paphnutius for there to be a memorial with incense in Egypt in remembrance of the hermit. He then blessed the traveler and died.

Due to the hard and rocky ground, Paphnutius could not dig a hole for a grave, and therefore covered Onuphrius’ body in a cloak, leaving the hermit’s body in a cleft of the rocks. After the burial, Onuphrius’ cell crumbled, which Paphnutius took to be a sign that he should not stay. More




Acknowledgement: Wikipedia, Irina Olih, 
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