Saint Simon

Simon holds two things, a book and a saw, and the saw is what identifies him: it is the instrument of his martyrdom, and it told any worshipper in a second which apostle he was looking at. The canvas belongs to a set of thirteen, an apostolado, each apostle half-length against a dark ground with his attribute and nothing else. Sets like these filled Catholic interiors in the 17th century, useful for teaching precisely because the attributes were so fixed. The Prado is candid about this particular series. The thirteen are of very uneven quality, mixing canvases with a lot of workshop work in them with closely studied heads, and the group is credited to Ribera or his workshop rather than to him alone. It is dated to the early 1630s. Charles IV acquired it from the Casita del Príncipe at El Escorial, and from there it reached the museum.