The J. Paul Getty Museum

The Miracles of Saint Francis of Paola

Object Details

Title:

The Miracles of Saint Francis of Paola

Artist/Maker:

Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577 - 1640)

Culture:

Flemish

Date:

about 1627–1628

Medium:

Oil on panel

Object Number:

91.PB.50

Dimensions:

110.5 × 79.4 cm (43 1/2 × 31 1/4 in.)

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Object Description

Arms outstretched, Saint Francis of Paola levitates while surrounded by a divine light. The crowd surges towards the saint, whose expression conveys his communion with God at the apex of the composition. Famed for his miraculous healing powers, Saint Francis of Paola was invited to France by the sickly King Louis XI, who is shown at the left with his royal court. In the foreground, a man and woman in paroxysms of insanity are restrained while awaiting their cure. To their right, a dead man comes to life as a sheet is symbolically lifted from his face. An assortment of people, some afflicted with blindness, deafness, lameness, or the infirmities of old age, ascend the stairs. The varied gestures and expressions enhance the dramatic effect of the whole.

Provenance
Provenance
- 1857

James Morrison, 1789 - 1857 (Basildon Park, Berkshire, England), by inheritance to his eldest son, Charles Morrison, 1857.

1857 - 1909

Charles Morrison, 1817 - 1909 (Basildon Park, Berkshire, England), by inheritance to his sister, Ellen Morrison, June 1909.

1909

Ellen Morrison, 1834 - 1909 (Basildon Park, Berkshire, England), by inheritance to her brother, Walter Morrison, December 1909.

1909 - 1910

Walter Morrison, 1836 - 1921 (Basildon Park, Berkshire, England), by gift to his nephew, James Archibald Morrison, 1910.

1910 - 1934

Major James Archibald Morrison, 1873 - 1934 (Basildon Park, Berkshire, England; Sudeley Castle, Winchcombe, England), by inheritance to his son, Simon Archibald Morrison, 1934.

1934 - 1969

Simon Archibald Morrison, 1903 - 1969 (London, England), by inheritance to his nephew, (Geoffrey) Mark Dent-Brocklehurst, 1969.

1969 - 1972

(Geoffrey) Mark Dent-Brocklehurst, English, 1932 - 1972 (Sudeley Castle, Winchcombe, England), by inheritance to his wife, Mary Elizabeth (Chipps) Dent-Brocklehurst, 1972.

1972 - 1990

Mary Elizabeth (Chipps) Dent-Brocklehurst, baroness Ashcombe, born 1944 (Sudeley Castle, Winchcombe, England)

- 1991

Howard Lepow and H. Shickman Gallery (London), sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1991.

Exhibitions
Exhibitions
Third National Loan Exhibition: Pictures from Basildon Park and Fonthill Collections (Winter 1914 to 1915)
  • Grosvenor Gallery (London), 1914 to 1915
Rubens, Painter of Sketches (April 9, 2018 to January 13, 2019)
  • Museo del Prado (Madrid), April 9 to August 5, 2018
  • Stichting tot Beheer Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam), September 8, 2018 to January 13, 2019
Bibliography
Bibliography

Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art in Great Britian: Being an Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss., &c., &c. 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1854), vol. 2, p. 263.

Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of More than Forty Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Mss. [...] Visited in 1854 and 1856, and Now for the First Time Described, A Supplement to Treasures of Art in Great Britain (London: John Murray, 1857), p. 106.

Rooses, Max. L'Oeuvre de P. P. Rubens: Histoire et description de ses tableaux et dessins. 5 vols. (Antwerp: Jos. Maes, 1886-92), vol. 2 (1888), p. 263, under 431 bis.

Dillon, Edward. Rubens (London: Methuen and Co., 1909), pp. 147, 234.

Morrison, James Archibald. Catalogue of Pictures at Basildon Park, Berkshire (Oxford: Horace Hart, 1910), p. 10, as Rubens.

A Catalogue of the Pictures in the III National Loan Exhibition: Pictures from the Basildon Park and Fonthill Collections. [..] held at the Grosvenor Gallery, exh. cat. (London: W. Clowes, 1914), p. 106, no. 99.

Catalogue of the Pictures at Basildon Park. The Property of Captain Archibald Morrison. Typescript, unpublished, n.d, unpaginated, no. 27.

Jaffé, Michael. "Rediscovered Oil Sketches by Rubens-II." Burlington Magazine 111, no. 798 (September 1969), p. 537.

Jaffé, Michael. "Rediscovered Oil Sketches by Rubens-III." Burlington Magazine 112, no. 808 (July 1970), p. 436, fig. 9.

Vleighe, Hans. Saints, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard. P. S. Falla, trans. 2 vols. (London and New York: Phaidon, 1973), vol. 2, pp. 24-26, no. 103c, pl. 3.

Held, Julius S. "Zwei Rubensprobleme." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 39 (1976), pp. 46-53.

Hutter, Heribert. Peter Paul Rubens in der Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste in Wien (Vienna: Akademie der Bildenden Künste, 1977), p. 14.

Le siècle de Rubens dans les collections publiques françaises, exh. cat. (Paris: Grand Palais, 1977), p. 204, under no. 156.

Held, Julius. The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens--A Critical Catalogue. 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), vol. 2, pl. 396.

Held, Julius. The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens--A Critical Catalogue. 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), vol. 1, pp. 554-60, no. 407.

Bodart, Didier. Rubens (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1985), p. 188, no. 689b.

Jaffé, Michael. Rubens: Catalogo completo. Germano Mulazzani, trans. (Milan: Rizzoli, 1989), pp. 304-5, no. 905.

"Acquisitions/1991." The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 20 (1992), p. 146, no. 27.

Carr, Dawson W., and Mark Leonard. Looking at Paintings: A Guide to Technical Terms (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, with British Museum Press, 1992), p. 49, ill.

"Part II: Paintings Sold in the Past." In Otto Naumann, Ltd. Inaugural Exhibition of Old Master Paintings, 12 January-1 March 1995, exh. cat. (New York: Otto Naumann, Ltd., 1995), p. 180, ill.

Jaffé, David. Summary Catalogue of European Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), p. 110, ill.

Walsh, John, and Deborah Gribbon. The J. Paul Getty Museum and Its Collections: A Museum for the New Century (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1997), pp. 108, 118, ill.

Jeromack, Paul. "A Tough Love." Art & Auction 25, no. 2 (February 2003), p. 80.

Brejon de Lavergnée, Arnold, et al., eds. Rubens, exh. cat. (Lille: Palais des Beaux-Arts, 2004), p. 190, ill., entry by Hans Vlieghe.

Seiffert, Gregory. "Violence Unseen: Zhi Lin's Depiction of Suffering and Spectacle." In Outside In: Chinese X American X Contemporary Art, exh. cat. Jerome Silbergeld, ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum, with Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 229-30, fig. 11.

Jaffe, David. Review of Pure Rubens. Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. Burlington Magazine 160, no. 1388 (November 2018), p. 957.

Lammertse, Friso, and Alejandro Vergara, eds. Rubens: Painter of Sketches, exh. cat. (Madrid: Museu Nacional del Prado, 2018), pp. 167-69, no. 51, ill., entry by Alejandro Vergara; p. 70, under no. 7 ("The Blinding of Samson").

"Rubens Presents...The Origin and Formulation of the Painted Sketch." In Rubens: Painter of Sketches, exh. cat. Friso Lammertse and Alejandro Vergara, eds. (Madrid: Museu Nacional del Prado, 2018), pp. 22-24.