Saint Paul

The sword and the book

Saint Paul is identified by a sword and a book. The sword refers to the manner of his death, and by extension to the word of God described as a sword in his own letters; the book stands for those letters. Together they are enough to name him without a label. A second, softer convention supports them: Paul is given a high bald forehead and a long dark beard, held steady across centuries of pictures so that the face itself functions as an attribute.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates this canvas to 1634 and gives the Museo del Prado in Madrid as the location. The dimensions are 76 x 61 cm. It is filed under male portraiture and Religion, with Baroque as the style, and the measured colour family of the image is red — a note worth keeping, because red is the colour convention assigned to martyrs and Paul is one.

Half of a pair

The same record contains a Saint Peter by this artist, of the same year, in the same museum, at exactly 76 x 61 cm. Peter and Paul are the standard pairing of the Roman church, and here the two catalogue entries agree in date, collection and measurement. That is what the fields report; the rest is the convention, which supplies keys to one and a sword to the other.