Saint Paul the Hermit

In the 1790s the Spanish crown set out to publish its own picture galleries. A company was formed to have the paintings of the royal palaces copied as engravings, so that people who would never be let into those rooms could see what hung there. This canvas was on the list. Agustín Esteve made the drawing, and in 1797 Philippe Criere cut the copper plate, which reproduces the picture in reverse. The lettering beneath it gives the size in the Spanish measure of the day, five feet high by five wide. That is the odd thing about the painting. It is a true square, 143 centimetres on each side, and Ribera signed it in 1640. Paul of Thebes, the first Christian hermit, sits meditating before a skull, painted in the lighter, broader range of colour Ribera moved to in his later years. The canvas is not on show at present.