Painted on silk in fine, vibrant colours, the present painting represents Saint Anthony of Padua (1193?-1231) or of Lisbon.

The Saint is depicted kneeling, holding the Christ Child in his arms and surrounded by cherubs. In the foreground, on the right, an open book (symbolising his renowned skills as an outstanding preacher, namely against the Catharist heresy and as the Franciscan order’s first Lector in Theology) with white lilies (Lilium candidum) resting on it, symbols of purity, normally associated with the Virgin, rebirth and never-ending spiritual love.

The prominence of the flowers, which bloom in the month of Saint Anthony’s Feast Day, June 13th, might relate to the fact that, from the late seventeenth century, pilgrims have been offering white lilies to the Saint’s tomb in Padua, a tradition which led Pope Leo XIII (r.1878-1903) to grant permission for lilies to be blessed in honour of the Saint.

While no exact match has been identified for a likely engraved visual source, the present work’s composition, European in nature, seems to derive from two combined earlier prints. One, by Flemish artist Alexander Voet the Elder (1608?-1689) (fig. 1), a leading 17th century Antwerp engraver and publisher, provides the overall posture of the kneeling figure and some other features, namely its profiled head. From the other, by Michel Corneille the Younger (1642-1708) (fig. 2), the Chinese artist seems to have taken the figures hands positioning, the Christ Child posture and some of the drapery.

It is curious to note that, contrary to the print, the Child’s upper body is shown wrapped in drapery, suggesting an intention for higher decorum. Both dating from the late 17th century, the engravings may have been used as the matrix for a later printed composition of identical iconography which, albeit unidentified, could have been the direct source for the present work.

The Chinese origin of our painting is evident, namely by the choice of medium, painting style and bold use of colour, but also from subtle iconographical features, such as some anatomical renditions typical of Asian features.

Identical Chinese features can be noted in another painting on silk work, also from a Portuguese collection, which has been recently acquired by the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore. It depicts The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception painted by a Chinese artist over a drawing by Giuseppe Panzi (Pān Tíngzhāng 潘廷璋, 1734-before 1812), a Florentine Jesuit lay brother and, like the famous Italian painter Father Giuseppe Castiglione (Láng Shìníng 郎世寧, 1688-1766) - who served as an artist at the Kangxi (r.1661-1722), Yongzheng (r. 1722-1735) and Qianlong (r. 1735-1796) Imperial courts -, a professional painter who arrived in Beijing in 1773.[1] That painting, depicting the main altar at Beijing’s Saint Joseph’s Church, known as Dong Tang (or Dōng Táng 東堂, literally the ‘Eastern church’), was completed in 1777 as a gift for Father Giuseppe Solari (master of novices in Genoa).[2]

While it has not been possible to establish with certainty, a connection between our painting and a specific Chinese Catholic church building, it is nonetheless useful to highlight the related artistic and historical contexts underlying both depictions, that of the Immaculate Conception and that of our Saint Anthony.[3]

Hugo Miguel Crespo

Centre for History, University of Lisbon

[1] On Castiglione and his followers at the imperial court, see Marco Musillo, The Shining Inheritance. Italian Painters at the Qing Court, 1699-1812, Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute, 2016.

[2] See Jorge M. dos Santos Alves (ed.), Tomás Pereira (1646-1708). Um Jesuíta na China de Kangxi. A Jesuit in Kangxi’s China (cat.), Lisboa, Centro Científico e Cultural de Macau, 2009, cat. 29, pp. 134-135 (catalogue entry by Isabel Murta Pina), and Elisabetta Corsi, “Pozzo’s Treatise as a Workshop for the Construction of a Sacred Catholic Space in Beijing”, in Richard Bösel, Lydia Salviucci Insolera (eds.), Artifizi della Metafora. Saggi su Andrea Pozzo, Roma, Artemide, 2010, pp. 232-243, maxime p. 241.

[3] See Marco Musillo, “The Qing Patronage of Milanese Art: a Reconsideration on Materiality and Western Art History”, in Yunru Chen (ed.), Portrayals from a Brush Divine. A Special Exhibition on the Tricentennial of Giuseppe Castiglione's Arrival in China (cat.), Taipei, National Palace Museum, 2015, pp. 310-323.