Saint Teresa: she is encouraged by Christ to bring aid to Bernardino de Mendoza in purgatory by building a convent on land given to her by Bernardino. Engraving by S. à Bolswert after Sir P.P. Rubens.

"In the tenth chapter of her Book of Foundations St. Teresa relates how Christ appeared in a vision to inform her that her prayers had secured the release from Purgatory of a priest, Bernardino de Mendoza. The saint is here seen kneeling before Christ. Below, a pool of fire with two men and two women in it suggests Purgatory. One of them, on the extreme left, is being set free by an angel; this is undoubtedly Mendoza. The fact that it is he and not one of the other souls who were released from Purgatory on account of St. Teresa's prayers, as she herself tells us, is made clear by the inscription under the engraving made after this picture by Schelte a Bolswert 'Exstimulat Chr.us d.ns S.M. Teresiam ut opem ferat animae D. Bernardini Mendozy, ignibus purgatorij detentae, quae postea ope S. Teresiae liberata fuit.' …"—Vlieghe, loc. cit.

Not the same Bernardino de Mendoza as the Spanish diplomat of that name (ca. 1540-1604) who worked in England and France in the 1580s

Antuwerpiae [Antwerp] : Gillis Hendricx excud. cum privilegio

1 print

Exstimulat Chr.us d.ns S.M. Teresiam ut opem ferat animae D. Bernardini Mendozij, ignibus purgatorij detentae, quae postea ope S. Teresiae liberata fuit. Lib fund. S. Ter. cap. 10. Sancta ergo et salubris est cogitatio pro defunctis exorare, ut a peccatis solvantur. 2 Machabeorum, cap. 12. Pet. Paul. Rubenius pinxit. S. à Bolswert sculpsit.

Hans Vlieghe, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, part VIII, Saints, Brussels 1972-1973, vol. 2, p. 164, no. 155, copy 6 ("155. St. Teresa of Avila interceding for Bernardino de Mendoza. Copies … (6) Engraving by S. à Bolswert (V.S., p. 118, no. 67)")

Wellcome Collection 7261i

After a painting catalogued by Vlieghe, loc. cit., as a large altar-piece painted by Rubens on canvas for the church of the Discalced Carmelites at Antwerp in the 1630s