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📝About this Artwork

Three names, one attribute between them

Cecilia is identified by music. The convention gives her an instrument — most often a small portative organ, sometimes a viol or a lute — and it is stable enough that an instrument in the hands of a young woman in a devotional picture is read as her name. The two men in this title come from the same legend and carry a different sign: Valerianus, her husband, and Tiburtius, his brother, are given crowns of roses and lilies, described in the account as brought to them by an angel. Three figures, two kinds of attribute, and no inscription needed for any of them.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1607 and gives Palazzo Brera in Milan as its location. No dimensions are recorded in this entry. It is filed under religious cultural heritage and under Fantasy, with Mannerism Late Renaissance as the style and Italian as the nationality; the measured colour family is brown.

Why Fantasy sits in the categories

That tag is doing straightforward work here. The episode the title names requires a figure with wings, and a subject index that records what a picture contains has to file such a figure somewhere. It is a description of the cast, not a judgement on the story. The crowns are the attribute; the messenger who brings them is what the category is recording.

About the Author

Louie Drehmer, Curator, Saints Oil Paintings

Louie curates Saints Oil Paintings, cross-referencing every entry against museum records, Wikidata, the Getty Union List of Artist Names, and Wikipedia.

Saints Cecilia, Valerianus and Tiburtius

Orazio Gentileschi

Saints Cecilia, Valerianus and Tiburtius is an oil painting by Orazio Gentileschi, 1607, held at Palazzo Brera, Milan, Italy.

Catalogue Entry

Date
1607
Location
Palazzo Brera, Milan, Italy
Origin
Italian
CC Public domain
Curated by Louie Drehmer

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