Hand-painted in oil
About this Artwork
An attribute dressed in local clothes
The title recorded here does something unusual: it names the saint and then names her costume. Margaret of Antioch is identified in Western art by a dragon, and secondarily by the shepherd's life her legend assigns her before her ordeal — a crook, a bag, a flock. Painting her as a shepherdess makes that second, softer attribute do the identifying work, in the dress of the painter's own country rather than of antiquity. The convention is stable; the wardrobe is local.
What the record holds
The catalogue dates the canvas to 1631 and gives the National Gallery in London as its location. Its dimensions are 192 x 112 cm — a tall, narrow upright, the format of a standing full-length figure. It is filed under female portraiture and Religion, the style is given as Baroque, the nationality Spanish, and the measured colour family is red.
Standing figures, sized to a wall
A canvas nearly two metres high and barely a metre wide is a shape with a purpose: it holds one person, at something near life size, and it hangs in series. The record does not say what series this belonged to and none is claimed here. What the measurement does establish is the kind of picture it is — a single standing saint, met at eye level.
Sources
6 references- Zurbarán, Francisco de — Getty ULAN
Spanish painter, 1598-1664
- Francisco de Zurbarán — Wikipedia
Francisco de Zurbarán ( ZOOR-bə-RAHN, Spanish: [fɾanˈθisko ðe θuɾβaˈɾan]; baptized 7 November 1598 – 27 August 1664) was a Spanish Baroque painter. He is known primarily for his religious paintings depicting monks, nuns, and martyrs, and fo
- Saint Margaret of Antioch — Wikidata
description: painting by Francisco de Zurbarán, National Gallery; inception: 1631-01-01; dimensions: 194 × 112 cm; collection: National Gallery
- nationalgallery.org.uk — record for "Saint Margaret of Antioch"
Primary source record for this work (nationalgallery.org.uk).
- Saint Margaret of Antioch (Zurbarán) — Wikipedia
Saint Margaret of Antioch is a painting of 1631 by the Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán now in the National Gallery, London, which bought it in 1903. The artist shows the saint Margaret of Antioch as a shepherdess, holding a crook (ref
- nationalgallery.org.uk — reference for "Saint Margaret of Antioch (Zurbarán)"
Authoritative source for this work (nationalgallery.org.uk).
