Currently not on view
Saints Paul and Barnabas at Lystra (Sacrifice at Lystra),
1637
According to the Acts of the Apostles, Barnabas and Paul preached outside the city gate of Lystra, in central Anatolia. This painting depicts the moment after Paul cured a lame man. The latter can be identified as the older figure standing at left, his eyes turned heavenward, hands clasped in prayer, and crutches on the ground. The multitude expresses attitudes of astonishment, devotion, and excitement while the priest at right prepares a sacrifice to the gods Mercury and Jupiter, for whom Paul and Barnabas have been mistaken. Paul, atop the stairs, rends his clothes in dismay. Barnabas, hands outstretched in the shadows behind him, decries the pagan ritual. Having been to Rome, Breenbergh specialized in representing biblical and mythological scenes in an Italianate landscape. These works, painted on his return to Amsterdam, are replete with classical accessories and peopled with small, meticulously detailed figures bathed in a warm southern light, showing off the “cultural capital” the artist earned in Italy.
More About This Object
Information
1637
Lystria, Anatolia
- Marcel Roethlisberger, Bartholomeus Breenbergh: the paintings, (Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 1981)., no. 240
- Marcel Roethlisberger, Bartholomeus Breenbergh, (New York: Richard L. Feigen & Co., 1991).
- Marcel George Roethlisberger, "Saints Paul and Barnabas at Lystra (Sacrifice at Lystra) by Bartholomeus Breenbergh," Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 65 (2006): p. 4–11., p. 4, fig. 1; pp. 6–7, figs. 2–4
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 135 (illus.)
- "Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2006," Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 66 (2007): p. 41-74., p. 62
