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Home>Heavenly Earth: Images of St. Francis at La Verna

Heavenly Earth: Images of Saint Francis at La Verna

Cosmè Tura, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, 1470s, miniature on vellum, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection, 1946.21.14

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German 15th Century, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata, 1500/1510, woodcut, hand-colored in green, yellow, indian red, and blue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.606

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Lucas van Leyden, Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, c. 1514, engraving, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.5690

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Nicolò Boldrini, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata (after Titian), c. 1530, woodcut on laid paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 2005.14.1

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Annibale Carracci, Saint Francis of Assisi, 1585, engraving, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1977.78.1

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Pietro Faccini, Saint Francis with the Christ Child, 1590s, etching, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1972.65.20

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Jacopo Ligozzi and Domenico Falcini, The Chapel of the Cardinal [plate G], in Fra Lino Moroni, Descrizione del Sacro Monte della Vernia (Florence, 1612), engraving with an engraved overslip of a rock revealing stairs when lifted, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Acquisition funded by a grant from The B.H. Breslauer Foundation, 2013, 2013.67.9.8

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Lucas Emil Vorsterman, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata (after Sir Peter Paul Rubens), 1620, engraving, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1978.29.6

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Shown from the waist up, a man with pale, peachy skin and wearing a monk’s robe rests his elbows on a rock with his hands together in prayer in this vertical painting. He is lit from our left, and the background and edges of the composition are mostly in deep shadow. The man’s body and head lean to our left, and he looks at us with dark eyes under gathered brows. He has a long, straight nose, high cheekbones, and his pink lips are parted. He has a dark moustache, and his hair is cut into a ring around his close-cropped crown. He wears a brown hooded robe, and a string of rosary beads hangs from his joined hands. A slender crucifix leaning against a stone in front of him is obscured at the top by what might be a swath of white fabric. The top part of a skull, its surface a golden brown, sits on our side of the rocks. A few plants are tucked in around the skull and boulders. The background is nearly black except for a diffuse pale green halo framing the young man’s head.

Bernardo Strozzi, Saint Francis in Prayer, c. 1620/1630, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Joseph F. McCrindle, 2002.78.1

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Guido Reni, Head of Saint Francis, before c. 1632, black, red, and white chalk on blue laid paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1972.5.1

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Rembrandt van Rijn, Saint Francis beneath a Tree Praying, 1657, drypoint and etching, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection, 1943.3.7156

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Sebastiano Ricci, The Ecstacy of Saint Francis, 1706/1720, pen and brown ink and brown wash on laid paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mrs. Rudolf J. Heinemann, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 1991.172.1.a

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Johan Baptist Enzensberger, The Stigmatization of Saint Francis, 1760s, pen and brown ink with gray wash over graphite on laid paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 2007.111.75

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