Saint Matthew and the Angel
Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo, 1530
Saint Matthew and the Angel shows the evangelist seated in dim light, writing his account while an angel leans toward him, apparently to dictate or guide his hand. The scene unfolds in an almost nocturnal space, where light seems to come from a side source and picks out faces, folds of cloth and the surface of the book. Savoldo was one of the Lombard painters most attentive to these lighting effects and to strong contrasts of shadow, which set him apart within Italian Renaissance art. It is dated to around 1530-1535, and it is usually linked to a private collecting context, although its original destination is not entirely clear. This group of nocturne scenes had a notable influence on the young Caravaggio, who would later push chiaroscuro to far greater intensity. X-ray imaging has also revealed a drawing of a female figure in the right half, an earlier change that shows how the painter adjusted the composition.
- Painter
- Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo
- Date
- 1530
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 93 × 125 cm
- Museum
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
- Genre
- religious art
- Depicts
- angel, writing, Matthew the Apostle
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