Saint Sebastian (Louvre, RF 1766)

A large tempera and oil painting on canvas by Andrea Mantegna, dated to about 1480, showing Sebastian bound to a fragment of classical architecture, an arrow piercing his side, his gaze lifted toward Heaven in an expression of transcendent endurance rather than pain. Two archers who carried out his martyrdom stand at his feet, contrasted against the saint's stillness, while the surrounding ruins, carved with fragments of ancient inscription and grown through with a fig tree beside the column, display Mantegna's antiquarian precision. The panel is recorded in the Altar of San Zeno in Verona before later passing to the Sainte Chapelle of Aigueperse in France, in connection with the 1486 marriage of Chiara Gonzaga to Gilbert de Bourbon, and now hangs in the Musee du Louvre, one of three surviving Sebastian paintings by the artist.