Saint Luke

1570-1571

Giorgio Vasari

Artist, Florentine, 1511 - 1574

A pale-skinned man sitting hunched over as he draws on a tablet and a bull lying at his feet fill this vertical painting. The man faces our right in profile, and he looks down at the book. He has a lined forehead, a bumped nose, and wrinkles around his nose. He has lanky, chin-length hair and a curly, unruly beard. He sits with one leg pulled up so he can partially brace the tablet on that knee. He holds the inkwell and clutches the top of the tablet with one hand and draws using a feather quill with the other. His other leg stretches down, and the ball of the bare foot is perched against the edge of the low platform on which the man sits. His garment has a white collar over a tunic that shimmers from plum purple to moss green. Extending from under the tunic’s short sleeves are long sky blue and pale laurel green sleeves. A golden yellow robe drapes over one shoulder and wraps around his lap. The gray bull, which is shown in about half the scale of the man, sits with one front leg tucked under his body as he looks over to our right. The floor is pale mauve purple, and the background is dark green, almost black. A glimpse of a work of art showing a woman holding a baby is visible near the top left corner of the painting.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

The Saint Luke and Saint Mark panels were part of a commission from Pope Pius V in 1569 to decorate the newly built Torre Pio (Pius Tower) in the Vatican. The project, for which Vasari was knighted by the pope, was finished in two years. In the upper chapel, dedicated to the Archangel Michael, Vasari’s Coronation of the Virgin occupied the main altar while elaborately framed mirrors flanked either side of the chapel doorways. Large panel paintings of the four evangelists–Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, and Saint John–were set within these mirrors. After 1750, the chapel complex was dismantled and the paintings were dispersed. Saint Matthew, Saint John, and the Coronation altarpiece eventually went to churches in Livorno, Italy, while Saint Luke and Saint Mark were held in private collections in Europe and the Americas, before their donation to the Gallery in 2012 by Damon Mezzacappa.

Saint Luke, patron saint of painters, with his attribute of a winged ox, is seen in the act of painting or drawing (a faint sketch of Madonna and Child is barely visible over his right shoulder).

Saint Mark, with his winged lion, writes his Gospel.

Both Evangelists twist and turn, larger than life, ready to burst from their confined space, evoking Michelangelo’s Sibyls and Prophets in the Sistine Chapel.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 21

Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Commissioned 1569, with NGA 2012.79.1 (Saint Mark), by Pope Pius V for the Chapel of the Archangel Michael in the Torre Pio of the Vatican Palace;[1] begun December 1570 and finished by June 1571; chapel dismantled after 1750. probably Charles Grignion II [1754-1804], Rome; his brother, Thomas Grignion [c. 1748-1821], London;[2] (sale, Christie's, London, 2 May 1807, no. 54, bought in); (sale, Christie's, London, 28-29 April 1809, no. 91); Sir Thomas Baring [1772-1848], Stratton Park, Hampshire; purchased from his estate by his son, Thomas Baring [1799-1873], London and Stratton Park; by inheritance to his nephew, Thomas George Baring, 1st earl of Northbrook [1826-1904], London and Stratton Park; by inheritance to his son, Francis George Baring, 2nd earl of Northbrook [1850-1929], London and Stratton Park; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 12 December 1919, no. 138 [with NGA 2012.79.1]); Vicars. (Galerie Charles Brunner, Paris), by 1929.[3] Don Lorenzo Pellerano, Buenos Aires; (his sale, Guerrico & Williams, Buenos Aires, October 1933, no. 971 [with NGA 2012.79.1 as no. 970]). (sale, Sotheby's, New York, 5 June 1986, no. 11 [with NGA 2012.79.1]); (Richard L. Feigen and Co., New York); sold to Damon Mezzacappa, Palm Beach, Florida; (sale, Sotheby's, New York, 11 January 1996, no. 55 [with NGA 2012.79.1], bought in); Damon Mezzacappa, Palm Beach, Florida; gift 2012 to NGA.
[1] Provenance according to the 1996 sale catalogue.
[2] Charles Grignion II, a British artist who lived and worked in Italy, acquired numerous paintings from prominent Italian aristocratic families in financial need. He apparently sent them to Thomas, his older brother and a watchmaker and clockmaker, for resale in England. See the description for Sale Catalog Br-487 in The Getty Provenance Index Database; copy in NGA curatorial files.
[3] The paintings were numbers 2267 (Saint Mark) and 2268 (Saint Luke) in Brunner's stock; Brunner labels remain on the reverse of both panels.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1823

  • British Institution, London, 1823, no. 154, as St. Luke writing the Gospel.

Bibliography

1836

  • Passavant, Johann David. Tour of a German Artist in England. Translated by Elizabeth Eastlake. 2 vols. London, 1836: 1:283.

1838

  • Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Works of Art and Artists in England. 3 vols. London, 1838: 3:34.

1854

  • Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss.. 3 vols. Translated by Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake. London, 1854: 2:176.

1980

  • Del Canto, Fabrizio. "Chiesa di San Sebastiano." In Livorno e Pisa: due città e un territorio nella politica dei Medici. Livorno: progetto e storia di una città tra il 1500 e il 1600. Pisa, 1980: 300-301.

1982

  • Frey, Karl, and Herman-Walther Frey, eds. Der Literarische Nachlass: Giorgio Vasari. Reprint of 1923 edition, 3 vols. Hildesheim and New York, 1982: 2:882, 884-886.

1989

  • Corti, Laura. Vasari: Catalogo completo dei dipinti. Florence, 1989: 106, repro.

1994

  • Baldini, Umberto. Giorgio Vasari: Pittore. Florence, 1994: 183.

1996

  • Dal Canto, Fabrizio. "Opere d'arte vendute dai francesi a Livorno nel 1799 e le vicende dei dipinti del Vasari della cappella di San Michele in Vaticano." Nuovi Studi Livornesi 4 (1996): 99-122, esp. 109-116.

2013

  • "Vasari and the National Gallery of Art." National Gallery of Art Bulletin 48 (Spring 2013): 4-5, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20176743

You may be interested in

Loading Results