Saint Judas Thaddaeus

A Counter-Reformation apostle series worked rather like a set of name tags. Each saint stands half-length against a bare ground holding a single object, and it was the object that let a worshipper name him without reading anything. Keys meant Peter. Jude Thaddaeus was one of the awkward ones, and this canvas shows why. In 1857, when the Real Museo inventoried the royal pictures, the compiler recorded a halberd in the apostle's left hand. The museum's catalogue of 1872 moved the object to his right hand and admitted that it could not be made out whether the thing was an axe, a set square or a staff. The painting was made between 1630 and 1635. It reached the royal collection from the Prince's lodge at El Escorial, and the back of the canvas still carries the mark that named it the Prince's property.