Saint Barbara fleeing from her Father

Saint Barbara flees her father, Dioscorus, and towards her tower for protection against his murderous intent. Saint Barbara lived in the third century, shut up in a tower by her father so no one could see her beauty. On discovering she was a Christian, he reported her to the authorities. When she refused to renounce her faith, they tortured her, but every morning her wounds miraculously healed, and the torches used to burn her extinguished. Eventually she was sentenced to death by the sword and executed by her father, a moment which appears imminent in this painting. Saint Barbara holds a martyr’s palm in her left hand, as if to ward off her father’s assault. The palette is extremely limited, with two basic contrasting colours: the buff of the underpaint and the faint grey of the clouds. The ethereal, swirling skirts of Saint Barbara painted in whites, greys and blues, create the impression that she has already ascended to heaven, her billowing veil beginning to form a gauzy halo. In contrast, the angry Dioscorus is in hot browny-reds – he would later be struck down by lightning and consumed by fire. The tower would become Saint Barbara’s special attribute used to identify her in art.  

This oil sketch (or a modello, in Italian) was created by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) in the preparatory stages of his commission for the decoration of the then new Jesuit Church in Antwerp, Belgium, which was consecrated on 12 September 1621. A contract drawn up on 29 March 1620, stated that Rubens would paint thirty-one canvases for the ceiling of the church, including scenes from the lives of the saints for the side aisles, one being of Saint Barbara. Saint Barbara was intended for an octagonal setting in the ceiling of the south aisle, hence the octagonal border of this modello. The whole scheme was destroyed by fire in 1718. A modello, such as this one, was Rubens’ preferred mode of rapidly working his ideas out in preparation for a finished painting. In his commission for the Jesuit Church, Rubens was required to prepare all the initial oil sketches (or modelli), which were submitted to the patron for approval. Rubens was paid 7,000 guilders for the commission and once finished, had the choice of giving all the modelli to his patron, or of painting an extra altarpiece. Rubens chose to keep them, demonstrating how valuable they were to the artist and his practice. Many modelli of the original scheme have survived, and some earlier, more summary oil sketches (bozzetti). The sketch or bozzetto that precedes this modello is in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England.