Free downloadable Catholic paintings which are in the public domain
Details: This small, gold-ground panel—most likely a fragment of a larger altarpiece—layers several episodes from Christ's Crucifixion at Golgotha (in Hebrew, "the place of the skull"). These are rendered in poignant detail and include the soldier piercing Christ's side with a lance,...
Details: Carlos Manuel Cecilio Rodríguez Santiago, also known as "Blessed Charlie", was a Catholic catechist and liturgist from Puerto Rico who was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2001. He was the first Puerto Rican and Caribbean-born layperson to be beatified. Rodríguez was born in Caguas in...
Details: June is considered Sacred Heart Month because it is dedicated to the devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This devotion is a way of expressing love and gratitude to Jesus for his sacrifice and for his boundless love for humanity. The Feast of the Sacred Heart is celebrated...
Details: June is considered Sacred Heart Month because it is dedicated to the devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This devotion is a way of expressing love and gratitude to Jesus for his sacrifice and for his boundless love for humanity. The Feast of the Sacred Heart is celebrated...
Details: June is considered Sacred Heart Month because it is dedicated to the devotion of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This devotion is a way of expressing love and gratitude to Jesus for his sacrifice and for his boundless love for humanity. The Feast of the Sacred Heart is celebrated...
Details: This delicately painted icon shows Christ's Crucifixion before the walls of Jerusalem. A detail rarely included in Crucifixion scenes is the resurrection of the dead, portrayed here as tightly wrapped corpses, after Matthew 27:52: "The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints...
Details: This large Ethiopian Gospel Book was made in the first half of the sixteenth century and is written in Ge'ez, the traditional liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Containing eleven full-page miniatures, six canon tables, and five elaborately ornamented harags, or headpieces, this manuscript represents the...
Details: Aelred of Rievaulx, also known as Ailred, Ælred, and Æthelred, was a Cistercian monk from England. He served as the abbot of Rievaulx from 1147 until his passing in 1167 and was recognized for his writing abilities. Both Anglicans and Catholics consider him to be a saint. 🙏🏽This image...
Details: DID YOU KNOW? All books of hours contain the same basic sections, the order of which can shift, and individual prayers can vary, sometimes significantly, from region to region. DESCRIPTION One section of a Book of Hours is the Prayers to the Virgin. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, this...
Details: The Agony in the Garden is a biblical event that occurred before Jesus Christ's crucifixion. It is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew 26:36-46, the Gospel of Mark 14:32-42, and the Gospel of Luke 22:39-46. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed to God,...
Details: This image depicts a scene from the Bible story of David and Bathsheba. In the image, David is lying in bed, with Bathsheba standing over him, looking down at him with a sad expression. The image is in black and white, with a detailed and realistic style. The overall...
Details: According to Catholic teaching, each person is assigned a guardian angel at birth to guide and protect them throughout their life. The angel's presence is often felt as a comforting presence during times of fear or danger. They are believed to intercede on our behalf and provide...
Details: These panels reproduce the upper two tiers of the screen (known as the iconostasis) that separates the nave from the altar in Orthodox churches. Such sets, of which this is one of the earliest known, were used by priests for makeshift altars and by lay people for personal prayer....
Details: In this full-page portrait, John the Evangelist is depicted as having already copied John 1:1-2. It is a leaf from a large Ethiopian Gospel Book that was made in the first half of the sixteenth century and is written in Gǝ‛ǝz, the traditional liturgical language of the...
Details: An impressive eight-line initial represents a kneeling David praying before an altar amid stylized topiaries and set against a burnished gold ground. The text introduces Psalm 101: Domine exaudi orationem meam (Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my crying come unto thee). Facial types for the figures are...
Details: The prayer for the deceased. In a death chamber, a young woman kneels before a crucifix between two burning candles. In the middle, behind curtains, is the bed where the body of the deceased person lies under a sheet. A crucifix is placed on the bed. On the left,...
Details: The newborn Christ lies swaddled in a manger and reaches toward his mother, the Virgin Mary, while Joseph sits nearby. The resemblance of Christ's manger to a Gothic tomb poignantly signals his eventual sacrifice. Above, God the Father extends a banderole reading, "You are my son,...
Details: This panel was painted on the Greek island of Crete, once part of the Byzantine Empire, and reflects the Post-Byzantine style that prevailed among the island's artists during the 15th century. The Christ Child lies in a manger while the Virgin Mary kneels in veneration. Joseph sits...
Details: This rare double-sided icon was most likely commissioned by Tsar Boris Godunov (r. 1598-1605) as a gift for a church in Jerusalem, where it was kept until the mid-20th century. It would have been displayed for veneration on the feast days of the Virgin's Presentation in the...
Details: The Evangelist is depicted as having already copied Lk. 1:1-2. This large Ethiopian Gospel Book was made in the first half of the sixteenth century and is written in Ge'ez, the traditional liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Containing eleven full-page miniatures, six canon tables,...
Details: DID YOU KNOW? The images and decorated initials in the book helped users navigate to sections they needed while also offering details to provoke meditation and prayer, leading to books of hours sometimes being referred to as “painted prayers.” DESCRIPTION The style of this miniature, with its oval faces,...
Details: This panel originally formed the right half of a diptych, a hinged two-paneled painting used for private worship. The missing left panel probably depicted the Virgin and Child. The entire composition showed the monk, with his prayer book open, kneeling in an interior before Mary and the infant Jesus....
Details: The Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph consecrated the baby Christ to God in the Temple of Jerusalem 40 days after his birth, in accordance with Jewish laws concerning purity and firstborn sons. Joseph brings a sacrifice of doves, the priest Simeon receives Christ on an altar, and the prophetess...
Details: The arrest of Jesus was a pivotal event in Christianity recorded in the canonical gospels. Jesus, a preacher whom Christians believe to be the Son of God, was arrested by the Temple guards of the Sanhedrin in the Garden of Gethsemane. It occurred shortly after the Last Supper (during...
