Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 'Saints Maximus and Oswald (?)', about 1745

This small picture is based on an altarpiece Giovanni Battista Tiepolo made in about 1742 for a church in Padua. The altarpiece, which is still in situ, is dedicated to Saints Maximus and Oswald, though only the figure of Saint Maximus is the same in both.

These two saints don't often appear in eighteenth-century art, but here they reflect a strong local tradition. Saint Maximus, draped in an exquisite embroidered robe and with his finger tips gently pressed together, was Padua’s second bishop; he died around AD 195. Saint Oswald, seated on the right in gleaming armour, was King of Northumbria in England. Born in about AD 603, he died fighting the pagan ruler of neighbouring Mercia. He became a martyr and was famed mainly as a protector against the plague – it seems there was a cult associated with him in Northern Italy.

Saint Oswald’s usual attribute of a black raven is missing here but it is included in the main altarpiece, which suggests that Tiepolo did not intend this sketch to be an exact copy of the altarpiece’s composition. The saint glances towards the cherubs descending on clouds from the ceiling of the loggia (open-sided gallery or room); one carries a golden crown, perhaps to symbolise the divinity of these figures. A young man with a palm branch tucked into his clothing – a reference to eternal life – kneels beside Maximus, while another boy stands in the shadows holding the bishop’s staff and mitre.

The National Gallery owns several oil sketches by Tiepolo that relate to finished altarpieces, like Saint Augustine, Louis of France, John the Evangelist and a Bishop Saint and A Vision of the Trinity appearing to Pope Saint Clement. Each of these scenes is framed by an arched building or loggia, which draws our eye towards the carefully arranged figures set against a bright and airy background. The architecture places us at a lower level than the painted figures, as we would be in devotion.