Saint Sebastian

Dosso Dossi was the duke's painter in Ferrara, where most of his work went into castle rooms and courtly fables. This panel was made for a church in another city, the Santissima Annunziata in Cremona, around 1526, and it asked something plainer of him, one saint alone, close to two metres tall.

Sebastian was the saint people prayed to against plague, and he is usually shown tied to a column or a dead trunk. Dosso ties him to a citrus tree still carrying its fruit, a sign of a love of God strong enough to end in martyrdom, and leaves armour and weapons lying on the ground at his feet. The body is worked smooth while the foliage behind it is put down in quick separate touches, the manner Italian writers call pittura di tocco. Far back, one break of light comes through the storm clouds.