Pietro Perugino (1450 - 1523), Saint Sebastian, c. 1485. Oil on canvas (transferred), Oil on panel, 174 x 88 cm; 214 x 130 x 10 cm (framed). Donated 1928 by the Friends of the Nationalmuseum (NM 2703) © Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum

The saint is gazing at the sky, a facial expression typical of Perugino’s art. According to legend, Sebastian was an officer in the Roman imperial bodyguard in the 200s. When his Christian faith was revealed, he was tied up and pierced by arrows. He was saved, but later died as a martyr. The motif of Sebastian as an almost naked young man became popular during the Renaissance and as a saint he was invoked against sickness and pestilence.

St Sebastian stands with both hands tied to atree, gazing up towards heaven. He is depicted naked, except for a loincloth hanging loosely from his hips. Only two arrows are shown, in his back and his thigh, the latter carrying the signature “PETRV S PERSVINVS PINXIT” in gold letters.

The saint’s left foot is shown in front of his right, which together with his tied hands and S-curved pose almost recalls a dance position. In the foreground, several flowers and plants are reproduced in a very accurate and realistic manner, all of them probably symbolic representations of his martyrdom, with the anemones and lilies standing for the passion and martyrdom but also the triumph of the saint. Sebastian is depicted in what seems to be a Northern landscape with a background painted in aerial perspective, with lighter shades and the mountains painted in a light green-blue tone; an early example of sfumato technique achieved by the artist’s skills in oil painting. The flowers in the foreground and the landscape in the background indicate substantial inspiration from Flemish paintings, and especially from Hugo van der Goes’s important Portinari Altarpiece (now in the Uffizi Gallery), which arrived in Florence in 1483 and was installed in the Portinari chapel in the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova the very same year. The impact of this altarpiece was immense, and I would suggest that Perugino’s painting of St Sebastian is one the first examples of its influence.

Not only is the surrounding landscape based on Northern art. Jeryldene Wood has also shown that the composition of the painting and the pose of the saint are based on a woodcut by Martin Schongauer.¹ Perugino’s St Sebastian has more of a central Italian lightness and a pose referring to the dance of that time, but the overall composition is certainly inspired by Schongauer or by other Northern representations of the saint. Another inspiration for the gentle S-curve of the torso may be found in early representations of the Flagellation, such as the Flagellation with Two Angels by the Master of the Gubbio Cross.² Three sketches of the saint exist in a book called “Perugino’s sketchbook”, now in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice. These sketches seem to be executed after Perugino’s original and now lost sketches for the present painting, by an Umbrian artist and possible follower of Perugino some time in the early 16th century.³

St Sebastian (256–288) was a Roman soldier, and was later appointed as captain of the Praetorian Guard under the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian. Sentenced to death for his Christian faith, he was tied to a tree and shot with arrows until he looked like an urchin, according to the Legenda Aurea. He was rescued and presented himself to Diocletian, who immediately had him clubbed to death. Sebastian was buried outside Rome, in a location that is now the site of the church of San Sebastiano fuori le mura, where he has been venerated as both a patron saint of soldiers and a protector against the plague. There are some early Christian representations of him in mosaics in Rome and Ravenna, but it is not until the Renaissance that he becomes a common subject in the visual arts and is represented by masters such as Antonello da Messina, Andrea Mantegna and Sandro Botticelli, to mention just a few.

St Sebastian is also quite a common motif in Perugino’s oeuvre, and the very first work definitely attributed to him is in fact a representation of St Sebastian, a fresco in the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Cerqueto near Perugia, dated 1478, and a precedent for his future commissions for Pope Sixtus IV. Perugino represented the saint in at least eleven different paintings, other important examples being the Madonna with Saints John the Baptist and Sebastian, formerly in the church of San Domenico in Fiesole but now in the Uffizi; St Sebastian in the Louvre and a Bust of St Sebastian in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, both dated around 1495; and an illumination on vellum in the British Library, dated around 1500.

The Nationalmuseum St Sebastian was also dated around the year 1500 by Venturi, Sirén and others in the 1920s and 1930s,⁴ but in recent publications the date has been changed to around 1485.⁵ And it is a matter of fact that the painting is more rooted in the second half of the quattrocento, a probable date for its execution being after 1483, when the Portinari Altarpiece was installed in Florence, and most probably around the year 1485. The original provenance of the Nationalmuseum panel is not known, but its relatively tall, narrow format may indicate that it originally served as a side wing of a polyptych or a pillar decoration in a church, just like a St Sebastian by Sandro Botticelli, now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin.⁶

The painting has a British provenance going back at least to the 1750s.⁷ In 1927 Osvald Sirén found the panel on the British art market, and on the recommendation of Sir Charles Holms and Lionello Venturi it was acquired by the Museum in 1928, with funding from the Friends of the Nationalmuseum.⁸

1 Wood 1989; Hojer 2012, p. 202.

2 Antenucci Becherer 1997, p. 150.

3 Two of these sketches were already mentioned by Venturi 1923, pp. 267–268.

4 Venturi 1923; Sirén 1933, pp. 79–84.

5 Scarpellini 1984, p. 85; Wood 1988, pp. 162–165; Wood 1989, pp. 8–18; Hojer 2012, p. 202.

6 The original function of the painting has already been proposed by Hojer 2012, p. 202.

7 Venturi 1923.

8 Af Burén 2011, p. 64.[End]