Free downloadable Catholic paintings which are in the public domain
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! In retaliation for Samson’s single-handed decimation of their army, the Philistines bribed his lover Delilah to discover the source of his strength: his hair, uncut since birth. Samson’s hair was shorn as he lay...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Joseph tells his dreams to his parents and his brothers. Standing by a bed of his mother Rachel, Joseph tells his dreams to his father Jacob who is sitting in front of the bed, left some...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! 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...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This is the only known icon devoted to the genealogy of a monastic order. Its subject is the "House of Ewost' atéwos," one of two major monastic orders of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church....
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This monumental panel probably once decorated a chapel. Both are from a large window in which the Crucifixion was in the center and the Saint Christopher at the right. The third panel, which would have been...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! “Commesso can best preserve antiquity and memory...and can resist all the battles of water and wind and other mishaps of fortune and of time.” Thus Giorgio Vasari wrote of commesso, a newly revived antique technique...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This scene takes place entirely in the celestial sphere, with a background of defined and golden clouds. Saint Joseph appears in profile, kneeling, and of advanced age, holding a hand to his chest and a flowery...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! In this painting Gentile da Fabriano combined several different devotional and biblical subjects: the Madonna of Humility, the Nativity, and the Annunciation to the Shepherds. As the Madonna of Humility, the Virgin sits upon the ground,...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! A muscular young man with a strong profile, who looks fully destined to kill a giant and to reign as Israel's king, this David is no innocent boy with a slingshot. Carelessly cradling Goliath&...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The Old Testament hero Samson rests his head on his hand in a pensive, even melancholic pose. Objects on the table recall two of his heroic deeds: he killed a lion with his bare hands, and...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! In his right hand, the Christ child grasps a stem of roses. The beauty and fragrance of roses symbolize heaven, while their thorny stems allude to the crown of thorns and Christ's suffering. The...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! According to the Gospel of Matthew, three Magi, guided by a star, found the newborn Christ and laid gifts before him. Artists throughout the 15th century elaborated considerably upon this biblical account, devoting particular attention to...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This small but opulent panel painting was once joined to another panel with hinges to form a diptych. Given its small size, its original function was for private devotional use. It could be folded like a...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! The Biblical parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:19-21) tells of a man who feasted and celebrated every day, while a beggar named Lazarus sat starving nearby. Dogs came to lick the sores...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Saint Catherine (1347–1380) was the daughter of a prosperous Sienese cloth dyer. At the age of six, she saw a vision of Christ and thereafter dedicated herself to chastity, penance, and good works. She became...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Despite the religious subject, the scale and intricate detail indicate that this painting was not for a church setting. Instead, as an independent work of art, a collector would have admired its artistry and unusual combination...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! In this painting, the Archangel Gabriel proclaims the Virgin’s destiny as the mother of Christ. The setting is an ordinary house, but simple objects have symbolic meaning. The lilies represent the Virgin’s purity; the...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! This central panel from an altarpiece shows the Madonna seated on a throne with the infant Christ, surrounded by kneeling angels and six-winged seraphim. Below is an image of the dead Christ flanked by the Virgin...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Jean de Beaumetz became the official court painter to the Burgundian duke, Philip the Bold, in 1376. Between 1389 and 1395 he created devotional paintings for the monks’ cells at the Chartreuse de Champmol, the monastery...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! It is likely this pair of enamel plaques depicting the apostles Simon with Thaddeus and Thomas with Matthew once formed part of the decoration of a portable altar, a reliquary triptych, or some other kind of...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Bernardino di Betto, called Pinturicchio, is said to have acquired his nickname ("little painter") because of his small stature, and used it to sign some of his paintings. Born in Perugia, the provincial capital...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! As a Dominican monk, Fra Angelico was not subject to the strict rules of the Florentine painters’ guild. He was thus free to develop a more personal style. This combined strong realism and solid forms with...
Please Subscribe or Donate [https://sdcason.com/donate] to Help Keep This Site Free! Bridget of Sweden (c. 1303 – 23 July 1373); born as Birgitta Birgersdotter, was a mystic and saint, and founder of the Bridgettines nuns and monks after the death of her husband of twenty years. Outside Sweden,...
