Saint Francis

c. 1615

Peter Paul Rubens
Flemish, 1577-1640

The Franciscans were among the reformed religious orders whose preaching and teaching activities helped revive the Roman Catholic Church in the Southern Netherlands following years of religious and political turmoil in the 1500s. Peter Paul Rubens here depicted the order’s founder, Saint Francis of Assisi, recognizable by the wound that imitates the pierced hands of the crucified Jesus. In this portrait-like image, which was likely made on commission, Rubens conveyed the saint’s spirituality through his meditative gaze and posture.

Status: On View, Gallery 208
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Peter Paul Rubens
Title: Saint Francis
Place: Flanders (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1610–1620
Medium: Oil on panel
Dimensions: 99 × 78.8 cm (43 1/4 × 31 in.)
Credit Line: George F. Harding Collection
Reference Number: 1983.372
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/100342/manifest.json

Age of Belief: An Exhibition of Religious Art from the Harding Museum Collections, exh. cat. (Saint Paul: Art Center, 1966), cat. 5.
Justus Lange, “One or Two Paintings? Saint Francis of Assisi: New Research on a Painting from the Circle of Rubens,” in Rudie van Leeuwen, Lilian Ruhe and David de Witt, Not Always Rembrandt: 37 Studies in Baroque Art (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2023), 240 fig. 5, 241-42.

Saint Paul Art Center, Age of Belief, 1966-67, cat. 5.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.