Sant’Antonio di Padova con Gesù Bambino (1767-1769)

Tiepolo, Giambattista (1696-1770)

Sant’Antonio di Padova con Gesù Bambino (St. Anthony of Padua and the Child Jesus)
17671769
Oil on canvas, 225 x 176 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Saint Anthony of Padua (1195-1231) wears a Franciscan habit and meditates before a book over which the Christ Child appears. This is one of the miracles of that saint’s tradition. The spray of lilies in the foreground is one of his iconographical symbols, and is accompanied here by the basket that symbolizes the alms on which that saint lived. This work was designed for an altar in the church of San Pascual at the Royal Seat of Aranjuez. The bottom-to-top perspective contributes to the composition’s monumentality. (MNP)