Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Sacred Art & Iconography

Saint Matthew and the Angel (Savoldo, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 12.14)

Oil on canvas, Giovanni Gerolamo Savoldo, Italy, circa 1508 to 1548, Metropolitan Museum of Art 12.14

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An oil on canvas by the Italian painter Giovanni Gerolamo Savoldo, painted between about 1508 and 1548, showing Matthew the Evangelist at his writing with the angel that traditionally accompanies him in Christian art. Held today by the Metropolitan Museum of Art under accession 12.14, Marquand Fund, 1912.

Facts
Subject Matter
Devotional Function
The biographer Giorgio Vasari records that Savoldo painted a group of nocturnal genre scenes around 1534, night pieces with fires, that this panel is generally counted among; pictures of this kind were made as small cabinet paintings for private connoisseurs to admire the artist's handling of candlelight and firelight against deep shadow, rather than as altarpieces intended for public devotion. 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Depicts

Matthew, Figures

The painting's directly named subject per the museum's own title, shown with the angel his own Gospel-writing tradition assigns him, matching the corroborating Wikipedia record's account of that same attribute.

Additional Source Matthew the Apostle (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Saint Matthew and the Angel, accession 12.14 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Metropolitan Museum of ArtView the Source
Matthew the Apostle (Wikipedia)
WikipediaDepicts: Matthew
Quote, Depicts: Matthew
Matthew is often depicted in Christian art with one of the four living creatures of Revelation 4:7. The one that accompanies him is in the form of a winged man.
View the Source
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