Saint Francis adoring the Cross,
oil on panel, the reverse marked with the brand of the Antwerp panel makers' guild and the stamp of Lambrecht Steens (active circa 1608–1632), 73.5 x 55.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 8 December 1943 (as Peter Paul Rubens);
Collection of Albin von Prybram-Gladona (1890–1974) and his wife Charlotte von Prybram-Gladona (1910–2002), Zurich/Munich/Salzburg;
thence by descent

This remarkably well-preserved panel of startling immediacy and force depicts Saint Francis meditating on the cross. The painting’s arresting power originates from the austere and intensely spiritual presence of Saint Francis, who is captured in a moment of profound contemplation. The Saint’s cowl has been pulled back, his tear-strained face exposed as he looks intently towards the crucifix, whilst his raised hands have been branded with the stigmata, the wounds of Christ’s crucifixion. Aside from the notable absence of the skull, the Saint is surrounded by symbols associated with his sainthood, including the aforementioned crucifix and the open book, which refer to his devotional studies. The painting’s limited colour palette and simple setting of an indistinct grotto, ensure that nothing distracts us from Saint Francis’s sincere meditation.

The humanity of a rich merchant’s son who renounced all worldly possessions to found the Franciscan Order in the thirteenth century who venerated poverty, held a particular appeal in the age of the Counter Reformation. The Franciscans were among the reformed religious orders whose preaching activities helped revive the Roman Catholic Church in the Southern Netherlands, following years of religious and political turmoil through much of the 1500s with outbreaks of iconoclasm. Indeed, one of the most effective means of propaganda available during the Counter Reformation was the traditional cult of the saints. The veneration of saints was enthusiastically encouraged so as to inspire the faithful to new and more fervent devotions. A key purveyor of this was the great Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) whose paintings focused strongly on Catholic doctrine.

The masterly execution of the present painting was enough to convince some of the most significant experts of the twentieth century, including Wilhelm Valentiner, Hermann Voss, Justus Müller Hofstede, Erik Larsen, Max J. Friedländer, and the noted Rubens scholar Ludwig Burchard, that the present work was a fully autograph work by Peter Paul Rubens (written communications, in copy). Burchard had initially dated the painting to Rubens’s Antwerp years from between 1610–20. Rubens returned to the figure of Saint Francis numerous times throughout his career, including a Saint Francis, circa 1615, conserved in the Art Institute Chicago (inv. no. 1983.372) and a Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, circa 1633, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent (inv. no. S-9). An alternative attribution to Abraham van Diepenbeeck (1596–1675) has been suggested.