Lot Essay
A copy by Boissieu after a painting by Zurbaran in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, V. Lavergne-Durey, Museum of Fine Arts, Lyon, Guide to the Collections, Paris, 1995, pp. 136-7, illustrated. Saint Francis was the only painting by Zurbaran in France before the 19th Century and was displayed in the convent of the Colinette in Balme de Saint Clair, near Lyon. The first curator of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, François Artaud, wrote that 'the nuns put it away out of sight as a frightful object'. It was discovered by Monsieur Morand in their attic and, according to Artaud, his dog barked at it.
It was soon bought from the nuns by a dealer who sold it to Jean-Jacques de Boissieu. In 1807 the Lyon museum acquired the picture from Boissieu under its traditional attribution to Ribera which it retained until 1847.
Zurbaran's picture depicts the apparition of Saint Francis to Pope Nicholas V, when the latter visited the crypt of the church of Saint Francis in Assisi in 1449.
It was soon bought from the nuns by a dealer who sold it to Jean-Jacques de Boissieu. In 1807 the Lyon museum acquired the picture from Boissieu under its traditional attribution to Ribera which it retained until 1847.
Zurbaran's picture depicts the apparition of Saint Francis to Pope Nicholas V, when the latter visited the crypt of the church of Saint Francis in Assisi in 1449.