Jusepe de Ribera español, “Saint Sebastian” (1651)

Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte, Naples

Published in the Catalogue for the Exhibition of Ribera’s Work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1992)

Ribera’s second painting of Saint Sebastian is highly unusual in showing the subject with hair on his torso. In their paintings of the martyr, Botticelli (Staatliche Museen, Berlin), Il Bronzino (Musée Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid), Cima da Conegliano (Musée de la Ville de Strasbourg), El Greco (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid; Catedral de Palencia), Holbein the Elder (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), Liberale da Verona (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan), Mantegna (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; Musée du Louvre, Paris; Ca’ d’Oro, Venice), Memling (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brussels), Antonello da Messina (Staatliche Gemäldegalerie, Dresden), Perugino (Musée du Louvre, Paris; Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg), Pollaiolo (National Gallery, London), Reni (Musée du Louvre, Paris; Musei Capitolini, Rome), Rubens (Staatliche Museen, Berlin), Il Sodoma (Palazzo Pitti, Florence), and van Dyck (Alte Pinakothek, Munich) show him without.