Saint Francis is comforted by an Angel

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Saint Francis is comforted by an Angel, by 

Saint Francis in Ecstasy, c. 1646. Oil on canvas, 172 x 183 cm. The caption reads: "Martyrdom, Sweet Glory Repeated, / The human seraphim feels wounded, / In his mortal pain he finds life, / In his torment, sovereign joy, / Love grows and in one wound and another, / it ignites fires of his proud ardor, / He asks God-Man for encouragement and gives him encouragement / The sweetness and instrument of an angel." [inv. 660] C.474; Tormo, p. 37; Cat. 1929, p. 37; Pérez Sánchez, p. 61; Guide to section A, p. 47. 

This painting was originally part of the series created for the "small cloister" of the convent of San Francisco in Seville. It was the first important commission in the career of Bartolome Esteban Murillo, who was not yet thirty. There were already precedents in the city for these conventual groups or series—Zurbarán's at the Merced Calzada are much admired—generally dedicated to the founder or illustrious figures of the order. The scene is based on a story by Saint Bonaventure, the first biographer of Saint Francis.

He was very ill and longed to listen to music, but there was nothing to please him. One night he was meditating when he suddenly heard beautiful music and was filled with such happiness that he seemed to have already left this world. The scene became even more famous when it was illustrated in a History of the Franciscan Order (Venice, 1586); it was also engraved by one of the Carracci brothers, and painted by Francesco Vanni, Domenichino, and Guercino. 

Ribalta's beautiful canvas with the same subject is well known in Spain (Museo del Prado, no. 1062). During the Peninsular War, Marshal Soult used the convent as a barracks, and the paintings were transferred to the Alcázar (1810), from where they moved to the former convent of El Rosario and then to the Academy in 1813. 

Among the paintings from the same series now dispersed, it is worth mentioning in the United States: Saint Giles in Ecstasy before Gregory IX (Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art) and Fray Julián de Alcalá and the Soul of Philip II (Williamstown, Clark Art Institute); in France: Fray Francisco and the Kitchen of the Angels, and Saint Junípero and the Poor Man (both in Paris, Musée du Louvre), and Saint Diego in Ecstasy before the Cross (Toulouse, Musée des Augustins); and in Germany: Death of Saint Clare (Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister).

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This image is a public domain image, which means either that copyright has expired in the image or the copyright holder has waived their copyright. Franciscan Gallery charges for the access to high resolution copy of the image. Manually restoration was necessary in order to improve quality, without covering the original image.