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Your galleryThe Large Saint Sebastian
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Follow the arrows from his bound arms down to his feet, then notice how the swirling lines of the clouds fill nearly every gap around him.
Saint Sebastian hangs bound to a tree and pierced by arrows, his head fallen to one side, while small angels crowd the heavy, curling clouds around him, one clutching its head. The block carries Baldung’s monogram and the date 1514 on a tablet at lower right, from the years the National Gallery places him at Freiburg. The Art Institute of Chicago acquired this impression in 2022.
Woodcut in black on cream laid paper · Sheet: 31.2 × 23.4 cm · Art Institute of Chicago · Northern Renaissance
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Large Saint Sebastian
- Artist
- Hans Baldung Grien German, 1484/85-1545
- Date
- 1514
- Medium
- Woodcut in black on cream laid paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 31.2 × 23.4 cm (12 5/16 × 9 1/4 in.)
- Credit line
- The Amanda S. Johnson and Marion J. Livingston Endowment Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.