Calling of Saint Matthew

Matthew is named twice over

Matthew comes with two sets of signs. As an evangelist he is given a winged man — the figure assigned to him in the fourfold scheme that also hands an eagle to John, a lion to Mark and an ox to Luke — and as a person he is given the money of the trade the Gospels say he left: a table, coins, a counting-house. A calling subject uses the second set, because the whole point of the episode is the moment before the first set applies. The coins on the table are the attribute; they name a man who is about to stop being the man they name.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1600 and gives San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, Italy as its location. The dimensions are 323 x 343 cm — very large, and close to square. It is filed under group portraiture and Religion, with the styles given as Baroque and Tenebrism; the measured colour family is brown.

Three entries at one address

3 works in this catalogue give this church as their location, and two of them — this one and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew — are recorded at the identical dimensions of 323 x 343 cm. The third is taller and narrower. That correspondence is visible in the fields themselves, and nothing beyond the fields is claimed for it here.