Saint Sebastian

In February 1619 the Bolognese poet Cesare Rinaldi wrote to Reni about a Saint Sebastian that a patron in the city was waiting for. The image of the arrow-pierced martyr, he said, deserved a frame of solid gold. The Prado thinks this canvas is probably that commission, though it is candid that both the date and the attribution have at times been argued over hard. Five paintings of this same composition are traditionally given to Reni, in Madrid, Paris, Dulwich, Ponce and Auckland, and they are close enough that telling them apart is a specialist job. What happened next to this one is documented. By 1746 it belonged to Isabel de Farnesio, queen of Spain, and at some point a much larger loincloth was painted over the saint, probably while the picture was hers. The Prado removed that addition in a restoration finished in 2023. Coming back out from under it were the contour of his upper left arm, his left hand behind his right hip, and the loop of the rope tying him to the tree. One arrow goes through his left side. He is looking up, and nothing has happened to him yet.