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Pre-Columbian Art
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Saint Arsenius Leaving the World
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Philippe de Champaigne
Saint Arsenius Leaving the World
1633
23 5/8 x 30 1/4 in. (60 x 76.8 cm.)
Oil on canvas
BF.1990.4
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Provenance: Sale, Paris, end of 1813, for 2400 francs, if the catalogue of the Didot sale is accepted (Paris, 28-30 March 1814, Arsène quittant la Cour, no. 23, "pouvant faire pendant à Arsène devenu Hermite, qui fut vendu, dit-on il y a quelques mois, deux mille quatre cents francs"); the painting subsequently disappeared. Purchased from Christopher Janet Gallery, New York.
Exhibited: Masterpieces of Baroque Painting from the Collection of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1992, pl. 66; Five Hundred Years of French Art, San Antonio Museum of Art, 1995, fig. 19.
Literature: Bernard Dorival, Philippe de Champaigne, 1602-1674: la vie, l´oeuvre et le catalogue raisonné de l´oeuvre, vol. 2 (Paris, 1976), no. 1614 (as lost, but known through the catalogue of the Didot sale); id., Supplément au catalogue raisonné de l´oeuvre de Philippe de Champaigne (Paris, 1992), pp. 38-39, no. 29, repr.; Renaud Temperini, French Painting of the Ancien Régime from the Collection of The Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation (Houston, 1996), pp. 66-69.
A microscopic examination permits one to read the signature and the date on the beam at lower center: P D.C 1633. The second 3 is barely legible (and could possibly be deciphered as a 5), but no doubt is possible on the first. Therefore, the picture dates from the beginning of the 1630s, soon after the return of Champaigne to Paris, at a time when he was already famous and had an important studio.
The landscape, which still bears traces of the influence of the Flemish painter Patinir, is not very convincing and could have been painted by members of the studio. The figure of the saint is, on the other hand, very beautiful (in particular the face and the hands), and it seems difficult to put into question its status as autograph. One is therefore tempted to see in this picture a work begun by the studio and finished by the master. But, as Bernard Dorival has remarked, to consider for this reason that it is not the work of Philippe de Champaigne would be to lack a historical sense. In that respect, the famous Ex Voto in the Louvre, also the result of a collaboration between the painter and his students, should be cause for reflection. A romantic vision of the creation of a work is not applicable to Old Master paintings, nor does the fact that a work is not entirely by the hand of the master preclude an attribution to him.
From an iconographic point of view also, the dating to about 1633 (much earlier than had been previously thought) is quite interesting. Until now, the work was thought to have been inspired by the Vies des Saints Pères des déserts et de Quelques Saintes ecrites par des Pères de l´Eglise et Autres Anciens Auteurs Ecclésiastiques. Traduit en français par M. Arnauld d´Andilly. However, this text dates from 1647. Therefore, the painter must either have had direct access to the original texts in Latin (which is unlikely, at such an early date), or have had recourse to another source.
Saint Arsenius was probably born about 354 in Rome. It is reported that he served as a deacon and also tutored the children of Theodosius I of Constantinople; however, these two facts have never been proven. Around the year 400, he joined the desert monks in Egypt. There, he lived like the other hermits, strictly disciplined in order to become closer to God and to better know human nature. His misanthropy seems, however, to have been particularly keen and he fled human affairs with horror. These words are attributed to him: "I have often regretted to have spoken, but never to have kept my tongue." He died about 412. Saint Theodore the Studite wrote his biography several centuries later; it therefore must be used with caution.
The picture represents the life of Saint Arsenius after he had chosen to go to the desert. (A question is written at the top of the hut: "Arsenius, Arsenius, why have you left the world?" Such inscriptions are rare in Champaigne´s paintings and can be found only in his portraits for the Galerie des Hommes Illustres, which are nearly contemporaneous with this painting.) Its pendant (which was on the Paris art market in 1814, but is now lost) showed the moment when Arsenius left the court of the emperor Theodosius I. In the Blaffer painting, Arsenius is shown alone, facing a crucifix, an open book, and a skull; his arms and his gaze are turned toward heaven. Several palm fronds lie at his feet, although no source reports that he was martyred. In the distant background, a monk kneels before a cross. The landscape is painted according to a stereotypical formula borrowed from Patinir: browns in the foreground, then dark green, followed by blue in the background. The face and hands of the saint are, on the contrary, much more typical of Champaigne´s art, and one finds in them the pictorial qualities that are also evident in his mature portraits.
Several elements of the picture appear in other works by the artist and have been noted by Bernard Dorival. The type of Saint Arsenius derives from the head of an old man painted by the artist around 1628 (Paris, private collection, Dorival catalogue, no. 31) after a figure in the album of Frederick Bloemaert, "Prima pars Artis Apellae." It can be found also in the Abraham of the Sacrifice of Isaac (Paris, private collection, cat. Dorival, no. 11), in the Moses of the two versions of Moses Presenting the Tablets of the Law (St. Petersburg, Hermitage, and Milwaukee Art Center), and in the Saint Ambrose of Saints Gervasius and Protasius Appearing to Saint Ambrose (Paris, Louvre), as well as in two studies for this painting (Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, and Stockholm, Nationalmuseum), and in the Discovery of the Relics of Saints Gervasius and Protasius (Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts). This repetition is very revealing of the way in which Champaigne worked and shows that the artist developed a stock from which he drew, depending on the needs of individual commissions. In addition, the skull facing Saint Arsenius is the same as the one visible in the two versions of Saint Mary Magdalene of 1648 (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) and 1657 (Rennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts). Finally, the hut is analogous to that in the Landscape with Saint Thais Freed from Her Cell by Paphnutius (Paris, Louvre).
Bernard Dorival (oral communication) confirms the attribution to Philippe de Champaigne, the very early date without doubt explaining certain weaknesses in the painting. He also suggests the hypothesis according to which the work could have been commissioned by a person of elevated status in the royal court, who would have retired at the beginning of the 1630s and would have wanted to take with himself this painting of a rare subject. My researches have, unfortunately, not allowed me to identify this mysterious patron.
Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation
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