Utställningstext: Helgonet har blicken riktad mot himlen, ett ansiktsuttryck som är typiskt för Peruginos konst. Enligt legenden var Sebastian officer i den romerska kejserliga livvaktsstyrkan på 200-talet. När hans kristna tro avslöjades blev han bunden och genomborrad av pilar. Han räddades men dog senare som martyr. Motivet med Sebastian som en nästan naken ung man blev populärt under renässansen och som helgon åkallades han vid sjukdom och pestutbrott.

Exhibition text: 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.

Catalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 136: 

TECHNICAL NOTES: The painting support originally consisted of
two hardwood boards, glued together vertically. It was later transferred
to canvas. The lining canvas is glued to a hardwood panel,
to which a non-original stretcher is attached. The support has
a convex warp, probably after warping of the original panel. The
ground is white. On the arrow to the left of St Sebastian is the
signature “Petrus Perusinus pinxit”. There are many old retouches
and overpaintings, some of them probably due to damage caused
when the painting was transferred to canvas. There is a 3 cm wide
black painted border along the edges. The varnish is slightly yellowed.
Documented restorations: 1958: Removal of varnish and
overpaintings. Retouching. Varnish; 1974: Retouching of scratches.
Filling and retouching. Regeneration of varnish.

PROVENANCE: Private collection, Yorkshire c. 1750; Art dealer
Arthur Sully, London 1923; gift of the Friends of the Nationalmuseum,
1928.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Venturi 1923, pp. 265–268; Sirén 1929, pp. 22–
27; Rutter 1930, p. 62; Canuti 1931, p. 144; Van Marle 1933, p. 317;
Sirén 1933, pp. 79–84; Camesasca 1959, p. 56; Berenson 1968, p.
332; Castellaneta and Camesasca 1969; 90; Ferino Pagden 1982,
pp. 206–207; Ferino Pagden 1984, p. 119–122; Scarpellini 1984, p.
85; Wood 1988, pp. 162–165, 243–245; Wood 1989, pp. 8–18; NM
Cat. 1990, p. 271; Bjurström 1992, p. 259; Becherer 1997, pp. 77–81;
Garibaldi 1999, p. 110; Garibaldi 2004, pp. 115 f.; Af Burén 2011, p. 64;
Hojer 2012, p. 202.

EXHIBITED: Rafaels teckningar, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm,
1992; Kroppen: Konst och vetenskap, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm,
2005; Perugino: Raphael’s Master, Alte Pinakothek, Munich,
2011–12.

St Sebastian stands with both hands tied to a
tree, 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
je

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]

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