Saint Thomas
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1740 - 1743
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
73 x 60.5cm (28¾ x 23¾ in)
Order this imageCollection
Basildon Park, Berkshire
NT 266904
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Saint Thomas by Pompeo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787), 1740-43. A half length of Saint Thomas, wearing a blue cloak and yellow tunic, holding a book under the right arm, the left arm resting on a pedestal, the left hand holding a builder's set-square, an attribute referring to the apocryphal story from the Acts of St Thomas in which Thomas goes on a missionary journey to India to design and build a palace for King Gondophares. The tale is the origin story of Thomas' patronage of builders and architects. One of a series of twelve paintings of God the Father and the Apostles by Pompeo Batoni, commissioned in 1740 by the artist's great patron Count Cesare Merenda (1700-54) for his palace at ForlÌ (see NT 266904-7, 266909-12).
Provenance
Commissioned by Count Cesare (1700-1754) and Fra Giuseppe (1687-1760) Merenda, for the picture-gallery of the Palazzo Merenda, Forlì, c.1740-43; there until 1945; Villa Merenda - Salecchi, near Forlì, till 1959, when sold (probably via M. & C. Sestieri, Rome) to the dealer Julius Weitzner (1896 - 1986), London; with P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London, 1959-60; by whom sold in 1960 to Lord & Lady Iliffe; by whom presented to the National Trust, together with the house and grounds of Basildon Park, and a substantial part of their collection of paintings, in 1979.
Credit line
Basildon Park, The Iliffe Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (Lucca 1708 – Rome 1787), artist
References
Clark and Bowron 1985 Anthony M. Clark & Edgar Peters Bowron (ed.), Pompeo Batoni A Complete Catalogue of his Works with an Introductory Text, Oxford 1985, no. 85, p. 233
