Beskrivning: Se beskrivning i den engelska versionen.

Catalogue raisonné: Description in Italian Paintings: Three Centuries of Collecting, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2015, cat.no. 142:

TECHNICAL NOTES: The original support, a hardwood board
(poplar), has been glued onto a secondary wooden support and
then provided with a cradle. The gesso ground is white and there
is a layer of red bole under the gilding. There is underpainting with
green earth under the flesh colours. The gilding is slightly abraded
and there are a few old retouches, but otherwise the paint layer is
in good condition.

PROVENANCE: Art dealer P. de Boer, Amsterdam; gift of Art dealer
P. de Boer and the Friends of the Nationalmuseum, 1930.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Venturi 1928, pp. 8–9; Sirén 1931; Sirén 1933, pp.
16–17; Strömbom 1949, pp. 34–36; NM Cat. 1990, p. 338 (as Spinello
Aretino); Weppelmann 2003, pp. 290–295.

In a schematic bedroom, drawn in perspective with open walls, 
St Julian is stabbing his parents to death as they sleep.
The saint is dressed in a red robe and cloak and adorned with a
halo incised into the golden panel. To the left a figure, probably
his wife, is watching the terrifying scene of slaughter. 
The drama is further heightened by the red blood dripping 
from the wounds of the dying parents.

The legend of St Julian originates from Belgium
or France, and he is said to have been born
in Ath in Belgium in the 7th century. Other
sources trace his origins to Naples. The saint
was venerated in cities all over Europe however,
including Italy and especially in the town of
Macerata. The legend, which is included in the
Legenda Aurea, recounts that the night Julian was
born, his father saw pagan witches who placed a
curse on him, saying that he was going to kill his
parents. When Julian was ten years old he moved
to Galicia to prevent the curse being fulfilled.
There he met and married a wealthy widow. After
thirty years his parents went in search of him,
and when they reached his home in Galicia his
wife told them he was out hunting. Julian’s wife
let his parents rest in their bed, and on returning
home Julian thought his wife was having an affair
with somebody and killed them both instantly.
When he realized his mistake, he found his wife
sitting by his mother. After seeking redemption
in Rome, he built seven hospitals and twenty-five
homes, the reason for his epithet St Julian the
Hospitaller.

The subject is rather uncommon, but other
14th-century paintings of St Julian the Hospitaller
are known, including a panel by Taddeo Gaddi,
now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New
York, which shows the saint dressed in red and
carrying his foremost attribute, the sword. That
painting is dated to the early 1300s and may have
been a model for the present altarpiece.

The Nationalmuseum panel was attributed to
the Tuscan painter Spinello Aretino by Lionello
Venturi as early as 1928, an attribution that was
reaffirmed by Sirén in his publications from the
early 1930s.¹ The attribution to Spinello is maintained
by Weppelmann in his recent dissertation
on the artist, and he connects the Nationalmuseum
painting to a polyptych originally placed
above the main altar in the church of San Domenico
in Città di Castello.² The central panel of
this polyptych was a Madonna and Child, which
was attributed to Spinello by Sirén back in 1908,³
and which is still preserved in Città di Castello
⁴ According to Weppelmann’s reconstruction,
the central panel was originally surrounded
by six side panels depicting St John the Baptist,
St Peter, St Thomas Aquinas, St Lawrence, St
Julian, and an unknown saint,⁵ probably St Paul
(as a counterpart to St Peter) . To each
side panel there was also a predella panel with a
narrative scene from the life or martyrdom of the
saint, now dispersed between Bologna, Milan
and Stockholm. The present painting
must have formed part of the predella, just below
the depiction of St Julian, and as both an iconographical
and a perspectival counterpart to the
similar depiction of the Beheading of St John the
Baptist, now in Milan. The dating of this
altarpiece has shifted, but Weppelmann links its
completion to the raising of the new church of
San Domenico in Città di Castello and convincingly
dates the polyptych to the first decade of the
quattrocento.⁶
je

1 Venturi 1928, pp. 8–9; Sirén 1931; Sirén 1933, pp. 16–17.
2 Weppelmann 2003, cat. 77, pp. 290–295.
3 Sirén 1908, pp. 83, 94.
4 The Madonna and Child is preserved in the Pinacoteca
Comunale in Città di Castello. [End]

Foto: Erik Cornelius / Nationalmuseum 2011

Titel (sv): Den helige Julianus dödar sina föräldrar
Titel (en): St Julianus Murdering his Parents
Titel (en): St Julian (the Hospitaller) Murdering his Parents

Title (sv): Den helige Julianus dödar sina föräldrar
Title (en): St Julianus Murdering his Parents
Title (en): St Julian (the Hospitaller) Murdering his Parents