Der heilige Sebastian, gepflegt von den heiligen Frauen

Ribera was a Spaniard who never went home. He settled in Naples around 1616, when the kingdom was governed from Madrid through a viceroy, and the grandees who came out to run it found a painter from Valencia who had learned his Caravaggio in Italy at first hand. The moment here is the one after the martyrdom. Sebastian is still tied to the tree by one wrist while two women, named in the legend as Irene and Lucilla, draw the arrows out and open a jar of ointment. The signature once had a date beside it. That date has worn away, and 1621 is what Ribera specialists read there before it went. Up in the dark above the group, two small angels are carrying in the crown and the palm he has just earned.