Catholic paintings of angels which are in the public domain.
Details: Dewing’s small, densely packed composition of four singing angels alludes to depictions of angels playing musical instruments found in 14th-century medieval manuscripts. Angels were traditionally shown playing stringed instruments, whose delicate tones were thought to lift the mind to spiritual matters. The harp, as depicted here, was...
Details: According to Roman Catholic theology, the Assumption is the movement of the Virgin Mary's body and soul into heaven. Thus the central figure of the Virgin dominates this scene of the Assumption, outstretching her arms and supported by two angels as she ascends into heaven. Below, saints...
Details: Although born into a wealthy merchant family, St. Francis (1181-1226) rejected all wordly goods, dedicating himself to chastity, humility, and selfless acts of kindness. By the time of his death, the order of friars he founded had expanded throughout Europe. In the summer of 1224, Francis visited a...
Details: Early devotional woodcuts are exceedingly rare today because, ironically, they were such a common part of fifteenth-century life. Available by the thousands from peddlers or monastics and at shrines and fairs, these images were carried around, tacked up for use as home altars, sewn into clothing, and prayed...
Details: One of the most sought-after painters in late 17th-century Rome, Passeri was also a prolific draftsman. The tenderly depicted venerating saint may be identified as Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (340–430), whose miter and crosier are held by two angels, while his numerous writings are represented by...
Details: This large oil painting was thought to be an early, rough sketch for the ceiling of the Salone de Biblioteca Antica in the Palazzo degli Studi in Naples. The attribution to Bardellino was based on the sketch's similarity to another sketch by the artist, sold in New...
Details: This dreamlike painting shows Jacob’s encounter with an angel on his journey home to Canaan. Jacob had sent his family and servants ahead to meet his twin brother Esau, along with his best livestock to be given as a peace offering. Left alone in the night, Jacob met...
Details: This scene is the moving conclusion of the story of Tobias, the young man at the right. It addresses the themes of family devotion and trust. Tobias’s father sent him on a long journey to retrieve family money. The angel Raphael appeared as a relative, offering the traveler...
Details: Gutenberg's Bible appeared in 1455. The first book to combine his invention with printed illustrations appeared in 1463. At about the same time, perhaps a little earlier or a little later, a different kind of printed illustrated book-the blockbook-began to appear. Gutenberg's catered...
Details: The Book of Tobit (/ˈtoʊbɪt/) is a 3rd or early 2nd century BCE Jewish work describing how God tests the faithful, responds to prayers, and protects the covenant community (i.e., the Israelites). It tells the story of two Israelite families, that of the blind Tobit in Nineveh and...
Details: This illuminated manuscript of the Four Gospels was created at a monastic center in northern Ethiopia. Twenty full-page paintings depict scenes from the life of Christ and four portraits of the evangelists introduce the respective Gospel texts. The New Testament was translated from Greek into Geez, the classical...
Details: This panel once formed the left wing of an altarpiece originally located in a Cistercian convent in the German town of Fröndenberg. The Coronation of the Virgin was a common subject; though it is not based on a biblical text it often appeared in medieval books of hours as...
Details: This panel would have originally been part of a much larger window. It represents the crucified Christ at the moment of death on the cross. Christ is flanked by two angels, one of which collects blood in a chalice from the wound in his right hand, a symbol of...
Details: This illuminated manuscript of the Four Gospels was created at a monastic center in northern Ethiopia. Twenty full-page paintings depict scenes from the life of Christ and four portraits of the evangelists introduce the respective Gospel texts. The New Testament was translated from Greek into Geez, the classical...
Details The Allegory of the Battle of Lepanto (c. 1572, oil on canvas, 169 x 137 cm, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice) is a painting by Paolo Veronese. The lower half of the painting shows the events of the battle, whilst at the top a female personification of Venice is...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Raphael is an archangel mentioned in the Book of Tobit and in 1 Enoch, both dating from the last few centuries before Christ. In later Jewish tradition, he became identified as one of the three heavenly...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! During the early 1700s, Roman artists returned to fundamental Christian subjects, especially those focused on the Christ child. This work presents the Holy Family with Christ’s maternal grandparents and baby cousin, John the Baptist, stressing...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Different from the paintings of the past masters and their interpretation of this scene, Bouguereau gives a unique view of this sacred event. Although he follows the standards of traditional Christian religious imagery, the atmosphere is...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! According to all four canonical Gospels, immediately after the Last Supper, Jesus took a walk to pray. Each Gospel offers a slightly different account regarding narrative details. the anguish of Our Lord in the Garden of...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Saint Ildefonsus or Ildephonsus was a scholar and theologian who served as the metropolitan Bishop of Toledo for the last decade of his life. His Gothic name was Hildefuns. In the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church he...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This life-size painting, a serene vision of angels serenading the sleeping Jesus in the arms of a graceful young Mary, is one of the most important works by Bouguereau in the United States. Bouguereau'...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! According to the ancient Martyrologies, Margaret was the daughter of a pagan priest named Aedesius. Her mother having died soon after her birth, Margaret was nursed by a Christian woman five or six leagues (6.9–...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Some might say this image—named Whisperings of Love—is a depiction of Cupid and a young girl. However, Bouguereau was a French Catholic, studied for the priesthood, and made many Catholic themed images. Therefore, this...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The star-haloed Virgin holds the infant Jesus in her arms. She is standing in front of a throne with Byzantine motifs, inlaid with colored stones. With his legs curled up, the child raises his arms,...
