Saint Hugh in the Carthusian Refectory

Zurbaran painted this around 1655 for the Charterhouse of Santa Maria de las Cuevas, a Carthusian monastery just outside Seville. It tells the order's founding story about meat. Saint Hugh, the bishop of Grenoble, had sent meat to the first Carthusian hermits, who were debating whether to give it up for good, and while they slept the food on the table turned to ashes. They took the sign and swore off meat for ever. Zurbaran, who spent his career supplying Andalusian monasteries, treats the white Carthusian habits almost as a still life, each fold of undyed wool caught in even light. The Cartuja was emptied in the 1830s, and the canvas passed to the city museum where it hangs now.