Der heilige Sebastian

Raphael was still a teenager when he painted this small Saint Sebastian, around 1501, before he was even twenty and long before the fame that would take him to Rome. What is striking is how little it looks like the usual Sebastian. There is no execution here, no body pierced with arrows tied to a post. Instead a calm, almost girlish young man in soft rose and green looks off to one side, holding a single arrow lightly between his fingers like a flower, the only sign of the martyrdom to come. The panel is tiny, about 43 centimetres tall. It reached the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo in 1866 as part of a large private collection the museum took in.