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

Dimensions:

110.5 × 79.4 cm (43 1/2 × 31 1/4 in.)

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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
- 1857

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

1857 - 1909

Charles Morrison, 1817 - 1909 (Basildon Park, Berkshire, England), by inheritance to his brother, Walter Morrison, 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 (London, England; Basildon Park, Berkshire, England), by inheritance to Simon Archibald Morrison, 1934.

1934 -

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

-

Estate of (Geoffrey) Mark Dent-Brocklehurst, English, 1932 - 1972

- 1990

Mrs. Mary Elizabeth (Chips) Dent-Brocklehurst (Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, England)

- 1991

Howard Lepow

- 1991

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

Exhibitions
Third International Loan Exhibition (1914 to 1915) (99)
  • Grosvenor Gallery (London), 1914 to 1915
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.

Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, supplement to Treasures of Art in Great Britain. (London: 1857), p. 106.

Rooses, Max. L'Oeuvre de P.P. Rubens (Antwerp: 1888), p. 263 under 431 bis.

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

Jaffé, Michael. "Rediscovered Oil Sketches by Rubens: I." Burlington Magazine, 111 (July 1969), p. 537.

"Rediscovered Oil Sketches by Ruben-III." The Burlington Magazine 112 (1970), p. 436 and fig. 9.

Vleighe, Hans. Saints, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, 8 vol. 2. (London and New York: 1973), 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: 1977), p. 14.

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

Held, Julius. The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens--A Critical Catalogue, 2 vols. (Princeton: 1980), vol. 1, pp. 554-560, no. 407, vol. 2, pl. 396.

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

Jaffé, Michael. Rubens: catalogo completo, trans. Germano Mulazzani(Milan: 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.

Inaugural Exhibition of Old Master Paintings, exh. cat. (New York: Otto Naumann, Ltd., 1995), p. 180, ill.

"Part II: Paintings Sold in the Past: 1990." in Otto Naumann, Ltd. Inaugural Exhibition of Old Master Paintings, 12 January-1 March 1995. (New York: 1995), color 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.

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. (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum, with Yale University Press, 2009), p. 230, ill. p. 229, fig. 11.

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