Sainte Justine avec la licorne, vénérée par un donateur

Moretto da Brescia · PD

Sainte Justine avec la licorne, vénérée par un donateur


Détails

Année
1530
Technique
peinture à l'huile
Type
peinture
Dimensions
200 × 139 cm

L'histoire

For almost two centuries this panel hung under the wrong name. When it first turns up in a 1662 Habsburg inventory, on its way from the Hofburg to Ambras Castle, it is listed as a Titian. A later inventory reassigned it to Pordenone, and only in 1845 did a restorer give it back to its real author, Moretto of Brescia, who painted it around 1530. Saint Justina stands calm in gold and white, the patron saint of nearby Padua, a small white unicorn resting at her side as the old sign of her virginity. At her feet a donor kneels in profile, gazing up, the man who paid for the picture, though no document survives to tell us his name.