St. Francis Beneath a Tree Praying
Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669)
1657
- Medium
- Etching and drypoint on ivory laid paper
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Image/plate: 18.2 × 24.2 cm (7 3/16 × 9 9/16 in.); Sheet: 18.3 × 24.4 cm (7 1/4 × 9 5/8 in.)
- Culture
- Holland
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Rembrandt saturated the dark, inky forest of his Saint Francis beneath a Tree Praying with velvety burr along drypoint lines and deep tone wiped selectively throughout the plate. Instead of the Dutch Reformed Church, this image reflects the vision of the Roman Catholic Church in its emphasis on the lives of the saints and therefore may have been a private commission. The unusually elderly Saint Francis gazes toward a large crucifix, which might be real or imagined, within the forest glade and speaks directly to it. With his head angled and mouth open, Francis is hardly passive in prayer but rather an active advocate of Christianity.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
