Saint Philip

This apostle did not travel to Spain alone. He belongs to a set of thirteen canvases, twelve apostles and a figure of Christ, painted in Antwerp around 1610 to 1612, and the whole group was in Spanish hands within a few years: by 1618 it was listed among the pictures of the duke of Lerma, the favourite who governed for Philip III and who bought art on a scale no private Spaniard could match. Philip the apostle, who according to tradition preached in Asia Minor and died at Hierapolis, stands close to the front of the picture with one hand laid on his chest, a pose Rubens uses again almost exactly for Bartholomew elsewhere in the series. The same year the set appears in the inventory, Lerma had himself made a cardinal and then lost power at court.