Gerrit van Honthorst, 'Saint Sebastian', about 1623

Saint Sebastian

Gerrit van Honthorst

Room 24

About the work

Overview

Four bloody arrows pierce Saint Sebastian’s seemingly lifeless body. One has stabbed through his leg, and a stream of blood seems to enter our space from its tip. The saint was a Roman centurion who converted to Christianity and, in punishment, the Roman Emperor Diocletian ordered Sebastian’s fellow soldiers to tie him to a post and shoot him with arrows.

Honthorst must have seen many depictions of the saint’s martyrdom during the period that he worked in Rome, but he likely painted this work a few years after he returned to his native Utrecht in 1620. There were a number of outbreaks of the plague in Utrecht between 1624 and 1626, and Sebastian was revered as a ‘plague saint’, believed to offer protection against the deadly and highly contagious disease.

In-depth

Saint Sebastian was a third-century Roman centurion who was martyred for converting to Christianity. Following the direct orders of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, Sebastian’s fellow soldiers tied him to a post and shot him with so many arrows that, according to the Golden Legend, his body looked like a porcupine. He miraculously survived, but was clubbed to death on the Emperor’s command.

The subject of Sebastian’s incredibly violent death was favoured by painters throughout Europe across centuries. Gerrit van Honthorst has shown the saint on the brink of death in this arresting close-up depiction. Four arrows pierce his partially naked body, which hangs lifelessly from what looks like an oak tree. The one that has stabbed through his leg points outward, and emphasises the painter’s signature in the lower left corner. Blood drips from this arrow’s tip in a steady stream, seemingly into our space.

Sebastian’s tormented body takes centre stage in Honthorst’s painting. The beautiful torso echoes classical sculpture, like the Belvedere Torso, which had been admired by artists in Rome since the fifteenth century. At the same time, the saint’s physical suffering was intended to inspire devotion: viewers were prompted to imagine his intense pain and the strength of his faith.

The cult of Saint Sebastian was especially strong in Rome, where he was venerated as the city’s third patron saint after Peter and Paul. His remains were buried in the catacombs, at a spot now occupied by the Basilica of San Sebastiano fuori le Mura, a church dedicated to him. In the years that Honthorst spent in Rome, a number of ecclesiastical building projects dedicated to Sebastian were being planned or completed.

This picture was likely finished around 1623, three years after Honthorst had left Rome for his native Utrecht. There were a number of outbreaks of the plague in the city between 1624 and 1626, following renewed hostilities between the Dutch Republic and Spain that lead to food shortages and severe malnutrition in large parts of the population. From the seventh century onward, Sebastian was the most important saint to invoke for protection against the deadly disease. The Golden Legend recounts how, in that century, the Italian city of Pavia had been scourged by the plague until an altar dedicated to Sebastian had been erected and relics of the saint brought in.

Want to find out more?

Delve deeper and explore the catalogue entry for this painting.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Saint Sebastian
Artist: Gerrit van Honthorst
Artist dates: 1592 - 1656
Date made: about 1623
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 101 × 117 cm
Inscription summary: Signed
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1930
Inventory number: NG4503
Location: Room 24
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 17th-century Italian Frame

Provenance

Possibly the ‘St Sebastian pierced with Arrows – in a Landscape’ by Honthorst, of about the same size, which was in an anonymous sale at Phillips’, London, 27–28 July 1832 (lot 138), 30 gns. It is said to have been bought from a collection near Bristol c. 1928 by Mrs Mabel Berryman, in whose possession it certainly was by November 1928, and from whom it was purchased in 1930.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Neil MacLaren, revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School: 1600–1900’, London 1991; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2011

Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome

National Gallery of Canada

17 June 2011 - 11 September 2011

Kimbell Art Museum

16 October 2011 - 8 January 2012
2018

Utrecht, Caravaggio and Europe

Centraal Museum Utrecht

14 December 2018 - 24 March 2019

Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen

16 April 2019 - 21 July 2019

Bibliography

1931

H. Voss, 'Spätitalienische Gemälde in der Sammlung Dr. Fritz Hausmann in Berlin', Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst, LXV, 1931, pp. 161-8
1941

G. Isarlo, Caravage et le caravagisme en Europe, Aix-en-Provence 1941
1960

Maclaren, Neil, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 2 vols, London 1960
1960

L. Salerno, 'The Picture Gallery of Vincenzo Giustiniani', The Burlington Magazine, CII, 1960, pp. 21-7, 93-104, 135-48
1972

E.K.J. Reznicek, 'Hont Horstiana', Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, XXIII, 1972, pp. 167-89
1973

L.J. Slatkes, 'Additions to Dirck van Baburen', in J. Bruyn and J.A. Emmenss (eds), Album Amicorum J. G.van Gelder, The Hague 1973, pp. 267-73
1974

E.K.J. Reznicek, 'Gerard van Honthorst in Italia', in Colloquio sul tema: Caravaggio e i caravaggeschi. Roma, 12 - 14 febbraio 1973, Rome 1974, pp. 105-10
1987

J.R. Judson, 'New Light on Honthorst', in R. Klessmann (ed.), Hendrick ter Brugghen und die Nachfolger Caravaggios in Holland: Beiträge eines Symposions aus Anlass der Ausstellung "Holländische Malerei in neuem Licht, Hendrick ter Brugghen und seine Zeitgenossen", Brunswick 1987, pp. 111-120
1990

P.H. Janssen, Schilders in Utrecht 1600-1700, Historische reeks Utrecht 15, Utrecht 1990
1990

B. Nicolson and L. Vertova, Caravaggism in Europe, 2nd edn, Turin 1990
1991

Maclaren, Neil, revised by Christopher Brown, National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School, 1600-1900, 2nd edn (revised and expanded), 2 vols, London 1991
1993

J.R. Judson, 'A New Gerrit van Honthorst: Christ Crowned with Thorns', Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm, XVII/2, 1993
1996

E. Cropper and C. Dempsey, Nicholas Poussin: Friendship and the Love of Painting, Princeton 1996
1997

C. Brown, Utrecht Painters of the Dutch Golden Age (exh. cat. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 13 September - 30 November 1997; Walters Art Gallery, 11 January - 5 April 1998; The National Gallery, London, 6 May - 2 August 1998), San Francisco 1997
1997

J.A. Spicer and L.F. Orr, Masters of Light: Dutch Painting from Utrecht in the Golden Age (exh. cat. Fine Arts Museums, 13 September - 30 November 1997; Walters Art Gallery, 11 January - 5 April 1998; The National Gallery, London, 6 May - 2 August 1998), San Francisco 1997
1998

C. Brown, 'Revising the Canon: The Collector's Point of View', Simiolus, XXVI/3, 1998, pp. 201-12
1999

J.R. Judson and R.E.O. Ekkart, Gerrit Van Honthorst, 1592-1656, Doornspijk 1999
1999

G. Papi, Gherardo Delle Notti: Gerrit Honthorst in Italia, Soncino 1999
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001

Frame

This is a seventeenth-century Italian cassetta frame. The outer moulding is gilded, with a black-painted fillet. A black frieze features intricate sgraffito ornamentation at the centres and corners, depicting scrolling foliage and tendrils. The sight moulding is gilded.

The frame has retained its original form and, when paired with Honthorst’s Saint Sebastian in 2015, was fitted with an inner slip.

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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Central Hall