Free downloadable Catholic paintings which are in the public domain
Details: One of four codicologically unrelated leaves from an antiphonary, a choral book containing the music used in the Divine Office. 1 column of 6 staves in Latin. Bounding lines blind or light plummet, doubled and full-length to upper and lower edges, writing lines blind or light plummet, with upper...
Details: The upper half of this panel shows a unicorn hunt reconfigured to represent the Annunciation. Only a virgin could lure a unicorn who is seen here grasping the horn of the mythical beast; not far behind are the hunter and hounds. The Virgin here is the Virgin Mary and...
Details: Kenyon Cox painted this small, sketchlike image while studying in Paris. Although Cox trained with well-known French artists, his works were largely influenced by Greek, Roman, and Renaissance art. After Titian’s “Madonna of the Rabbit” is a copy of a painting in the Louvre by Italian Renaissance artist...
Details: Domenico Capriolo's Assumption of the Virgin is a painting located in the vestibule of the Annunciation chapel or Malchiostro in Treviso Cathedral[1]. It was commissioned in 1520[2] and is attributed to Domenico Capriolo[3][4][5]. The painting depicts the Virgin Mary being assumed into...
Details: The Christ Pantocrator in the Daphni Monastery is a mosaic dating back to 1080-1100[1], located in the main dome of the Church of Dormition in Daphni, Greece[2]. It was created by an anonymous 11th century Byzantine master mosaicist[3] and is thought to date from around 1100...
Details: Created between 1405 and 1408 or 1409, probably in Paris, the Belles Heures, or Beautiful Hours, a private devotional book, is one of the most sumptuous manuscripts to have come down to us from the Middle Ages. Commissioned by Jean de France, duc de Berry from the Limbourg brothers,...
Details: The Dream of Saint Joseph refers to four dreams described in the Gospel of Matthew in which Joseph, the legal father of Jesus, is visited by an angel[1][2]. In the first dream, he learns of Mary's miraculous pregnancy and is told not to be afraid[...
Details: Francis of Assisi, also known as Saint Francis of Assisi, was an Italian Catholic friar and founder of the Franciscan Order[1]. He was born in 1181 or 1182 in Assisi, Umbria[2][3][4], to Pietro di Bernardone and his wife[2]. Francis experienced a spiritual conversion after...
Details: This panel was first identified in 1913 as a work by Leiden master Aert Claesz. van Leyden. From 1935 onwards, the work was attributed to other masters: to Abraham Schöpfer, a pupil of Wolf Huber, given the discernible influence of the Danube School; to Johannes N. Hogenberg, who came...
Details: St. James the Less, also known as James, son of Alphaeus or James the Younger[1], was one of the Twelve chosen by Jesus and is believed to have been a bishop of a church consisting mainly of Jewish converts[4]. He is thought to have been born around...
Details: Pompeo Batoni's painting 'Sacred Heart of Jesus' was created in 1767[2] and is enshrined above the altar in the northern side chapel of Il Gesù in Rome[3]. It is one of the oldest known depictions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus[3], inspired...
Details: The Devotion to the Sacred Heart began in the 1670s, when Jesus appeared multiple times to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, a French nun[1]. The devotion has its origins in the eleventh century, when pious Christians meditated on the Five Wounds of Christ[2]. It can be seen as...
Details: Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque was a French Catholic Visitation nun and mystic who was chosen by Christ to arouse the Church to a realization of the love of God symbolized by the heart of Jesus[1][2]. She is greatly recognized for her devotion to the Sacred Heart of...
Details: Sts. Cosmas and Damian were two Arab physicians who were reputedly twin brothers and early Christian martyrs[1][2]. They were born in Arabia and had become eminent for their skill in the science of medicine[2]. The Greek Church celebrates the feast of Saints Cosmas and Damian on...
Details: Dewing’s painting responds to a biblical story from the book of Tobit. After the elderly Tobit was blinded by sparrow dung, his son, Tobias—accompanied by a dog and the angel Raphael, disguised as a young man—traveled to Media to collect a debt for his father’s...
Details: Based on a passage from the New Testament book of Matthew, this work depicts Saint John the Baptist performing Christ's baptism in the river Jordan, during which the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove. The powerful modeling of the bodies...
Details: Charles Sprague Pearce based this work on a passage from the biblical Book of Exodus describing the tenth plague of Egypt, in which God declared his intention to kill every first-born Egyptian child unless Pharaoh freed the Israelites.He instructed Moses to tell the Jews to mark their doors,...
Details: A carpet page is a type of illuminated manuscript page that is characterized by intricate, non-figurative, patterned designs. They are often found at the beginning of Gospel Books in Insular manuscripts, and are known for their use of bright colors, active lines, and complex interlacing patterns. Carpet pages may...
Details: The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated manuscript gospel book probably produced around the years 715–720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, England[2]. It contains the Gospels of the four Evangelists Mark, John, Luke, and Matthew[2]. The manuscript was produced in a scriptorium...
Details: The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated manuscript gospel book probably produced around the years 715–720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, England[2]. It contains the Gospels of the four Evangelists Mark, John, Luke, and Matthew[2]. The manuscript was produced in a scriptorium...
Details: The Chi-Rho is a Christian symbol formed by superimposing the first two letters of the Greek word ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ (Christos), which are 'Chi' (X) and 'Rho' (P)[1][2][3]. It looks like an X placed over the stem of a P[4][5]. The Lindisfarne...
Details: The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated manuscript gospel book produced around the years 715–720 in the monastery at Lindisfarne, off the coast of Northumberland, England[1][2]. It is a spectacular example of Insular or Hiberno-Saxon art[3], created with a quill pen and black ink made from...
Details: Folio 27r from the Lindisfarne Gospels, incipit to the Gospel of Matthew. The main text contains the first sentence of the Gospel According to Saint Matthew: "Liber generationis Iesu Christi filii David filii Abraham" ("The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David,...
Details: Eastman Johnson painted The Lord Is My Shepherd only months after the Emancipation Proclamation of New Year’s Day, 1863. The image of a humble black man reading from his Bible was reassuring to white Americans uncertain of what to expect from the freed slaves. But the simple act...
