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Shown from the waist up, a man with pale, peachy skin and wearing a monk’s robe rests his elbows on a rock with his hands together in prayer in this vertical painting. He is lit from our left, and the background and edges of the composition are mostly in deep shadow. The man’s body and head lean to our left, and he looks at us with dark eyes under gathered brows. He has a long, straight nose, high cheekbones, and his pink lips are parted. He has a dark moustache, and his hair is cut into a ring around his close-cropped crown. He wears a brown hooded robe, and a string of rosary beads hangs from his joined hands. A slender crucifix leaning against a stone in front of him is obscured at the top by what might be a swath of white fabric. The top part of a skull, its surface a golden brown, sits on our side of the rocks. A few plants are tucked in around the skull and boulders. The background is nearly black except for a diffuse pale green halo framing the young man’s head.

Bernardo Strozzi

Saint Francis in Prayer, c. 1620/1630

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 29

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 116.2 x 85.5 cm (45 3/4 x 33 11/16 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Joseph F. McCrindle

Accession Number

2002.78.1

Artists / Makers

Bernardo Strozzi (artist) Genoese-Venetian, 1581/1582 - 1644

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

(Carlo Sestieri, Rome); sold 1 August 1963 to Joseph McCrindle [1923-2008], New York; gift 2002 to NGA.

Associated Names

McCrindle, Joseph F.
Private Collection, Rome

Exhibition History

1980: Italian Baroque Paintings from New York Private Collections, The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1980, no. 46, repro., as St. Francis Praying before a Crucifix.

1997: In Celebration: Works of Art from the Collections of Princeton Alumni and Friends of The Art Museum, Princeton University, The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1997, no. 150, repro.

Bibliography

1966: Mortari, Luisa. Bernardo Strozzi. Rome, 1966: 168, fig. 7.

1995: Mortari, Luisa. Bernardo Strozzi. Rome, 1995: no. 33.

2012: Grasselli, Margaret M., and Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., eds. The McCrindle Gift: A Distinguished Collection of Drawings and Watercolors. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2012: 10, fig. 13, 19, repro. 185.