M0004157: Saint Sebastian, oil painting by Santa Cruz

Previous title, replaced May 2020: St. Sebastian; oil panel by Santa Cruz.

A black and white reproduction of an oil painting of Saint Sebastian by Santa Cruz. Saint Sebastian is depicted as a young man with a halo, wearing a white loincloth. His hands and feet are tied to the trunk of a tree. Fourteen arrows are fixed in his body. Eight of them were at one time painted over, leaving only six visible: the overpainted arrows were revealed when the painting was cleaned in 1966. A comparable change occurred in a painting of Saints Fabian and Sebastian by Giovanni di Paolo in the National Gallery, London, in which six arrows were visible in Saint Sebastian's body before cleaning, and twenty after cleaning (D. Bomford and J. Kirby, 'Giovanni di Paolo's "SS. Fabian and Sebastian"' National Gallery Technical bulletin, 1978, 2: 56-65)

1 February 1935

1 photograph glass plate negative; 12 x 16 cm

Wellcome Collection holds the item depicted in the glass plate negative: 44843i

Catalogue data comes from a combination of entries in the original glass plate registers, metadata created when the glass plates were digitised in the early 2000s and enhancements made by the cataloguer in 2021.

Please consult the digitised version as this item is fragile. Email library@wellcomecollection.org to request access to the physical item.