Willem van Herp the Elder

Anonymous sale, Zurich, Koller, 1984, lot 5049;

Where acquired by a private collector, United States;

Thence by descent to the present collector.

Executed on a remarkably large sheet of copper, this painting depicts an unusual episode from the life of Saint Anthony of Padua. Don Martin Bouillon, the Saint's father, had been unjustly accused of murdering a young nobleman. Miraculously transported from the convent of Arcella, near Padua, to the courtroom in Lisbon where his father stood trial, Saint Anthony defends his father, pronouncing that "the murdered man shall bear witness as to the truth of my testimony." The painter depicts the raising of the murdered man in the background and the testimony upholding the father's innocence in the foreground. Willem van der Herp the Elder treated this subject on several occasions, maintaining the compositional arrangement, but varying the scale and tonalities; the present version is among the largest.