St. Michael Slaying the Devil (S. Michael Archangelus)
late 16th century
Object PlaceMexico
Medium/TechniqueFeatherwork painting with cut feathers and gilt paper, on paper and copper; ebony frame
DimensionsFramed: 31.4 × 26.4 × 2.5 cm (12 3/8 × 10 3/8 × 1 in.)
Credit LineCharles H. Bayley Picture and Painting Fund, Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow Fund, Gift of Jessie H. Wilkinson—Jessie H. Wilkinson Fund, and Edwin E. Jack Fund
Accession number2015.3292
On View
Not on viewClassificationsMixed media
Collections
Notes:
[1] The inventory of Rudolf II’s Kunstkammer, drawn up between 1607 and 1611 lists, on folio 58, nine “gemeld ven federn al Indiana” (feather paintings from the Indies), including No. 615, “Der engel s.t. Michael, under ihm der teuffel” (The angel St. Michael, under him the devil). Based on its similarities to other paintings from this series, which are today in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (nos. SK GS Kap 321, 322, and 323), and the original frame that surrounds the work, Rudolf II’s Saint Michael is almost certainly the present work. See Rotraud Bauer and Herbert Haupt, eds., Das Kunstkammerinventar Kaiser Rudolfs II., 1607-1611, vol. 72 of Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, 1976, pp. 34-35.
[2] According to information provided by the auction house, the painting was consigned by a “North Country gentleman” who had inherited it from his maternal grandmother, a British citizen who passed away in 1926. She may have acquired the work in France.
A.D. 400–800
1737
Betye Saar