Free downloadable Catholic paintings of the Virgin Mary
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: 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: Cavallino worked in Naples where he was not well known during his lifetime, but was alert to the work of contemporaries whose innovations he transformed with extraordinary delicacy and charm. The adoration of the shepherds is a traditional subject, but here Cavallino shows it in a new light. The...
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 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: Created under King Yohannes (1667–1682) or King Iyyasu I (1682–1706), this manuscript in the First Gonderine style—with bold outlines and a rich palette—includes 32 painted scenes narrating the miracles performed by the Virgin Mary, a series intended to guide weekly devotion. These codified “Miracles of...
Details: Created under King Yohannes (1667–1682) or King Iyyasu I (1682–1706), this manuscript in the First Gonderine style—with bold outlines and a rich palette—includes 32 painted scenes narrating the miracles performed by the Virgin Mary, a series intended to guide weekly devotion. These codified “Miracles of...
Details Created under King Yohannes (1667–1682) or King Iyyasu I (1682–1706), this manuscript in the First Gonderine style—with bold outlines and a rich palette—includes 32 painted scenes narrating the miracles performed by the Virgin Mary, a series intended to guide weekly devotion. These codified “Miracles of...
Details The finest textiles and dress associated with the aristocracy were often represented in religious paintings. Here, the Virgin is clothed in a fashionably tailored dress with close-fitted sleeves made of luxurious velvet. Gold thread forms the pomegranate pattern on the deep crimson velvet ground. Saint Sebastian (on the...
Details This painting, produced by one of Fra Filippo Lippi’s many imitators in the city of Florence, is very close to the composition of the now lost central panel of the triptych commissioned by the Medici family in 1457. It was purchased by Mrs. L. E. Holden before the...
‘The Virgin, Jesus and Saint John Baptist’ was created in 1881 by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in Neoclassicism style. The image features the Virgin Mary who is sitting on a throne, the child Jesus Christ and the child John the Baptist.
A half-figure of Mary, with folded hands, looking up to the right. After an original by Guido Reni. A Madonna is a representation of Mary, either alone or with her child Jesus. These images are central icons for both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The word is from Italian ma donna 'my lady'.
William-Adolphe Bouguereau concluded the oil painting entitled Virgin and Lamb, or La Vierge à L'agneau in the original French La Vierge à L'agneau, in 1903.
The French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau concluded the artwork entitled The Madonna of the Roses in 1903, only two years before his death.
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 the importance of family relationships.
This large altarpiece was in the artist's studio when he died, and parts of the composition appear incomplete. Some figures lack color, and Reni never finished the wooden structure.
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 entirely different, mainly because of Mary’s presence.
The Holy Family consists of the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and Saint Joseph. The subject became popular in art from the 1490s on, but veneration of the Holy Family was formally begun in the 17th century by Saint François de Laval, the first bishop of New France, who founded a confraternity
The Adoration of the Shepherds, in the Nativity of Jesus in art, is a scene in which shepherds are near witnesses to the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, arriving soon after the actual birth.
The French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau concluded the oil painting entitled Sainte Famille, translated as The Holy Family, in the year 1863 and was exhibited in the Paris Salon shortly after.
In the late 1400s and early 1500s Rouen was an established and important center of book production. The city’s cathedral had a wealthy chapter that spent large sums of money to commission books and to maintain its extensive library.
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 this work the artist creates a strikingly beautiful pair of figures whose serene poses and serious facial expressions project an aura of sadness without sentimentality.
The infant Jesus embraces his mother with his left arm while tenderly grasping at the ruff of her shirt with his right hand.
