Saint Philip

About the artwork

This canvas belongs to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. It is the original Philip associated with the dispersed Albi apostle series, rather than the copy retained at Albi. Its cross identifies the saint through later tradition; it does not show an object Philip carries in the Gospel encounter paired here.

According to the museum’s provenance, the work passed through a Paris sale in 1941 and later Paris and Swiss collections before Walter P. Chrysler Jr. acquired it in 1975. It entered his museum in 1977. The carefully tied cross rewards a more immediate kind of looking than that long history: the object is crude, but its fastening is exact.

Featured in: Georges de La Tour’s Bible Paintings: The Candle Painter Hidden Under Other Names

What does John 1:46 mean?

In John 1, Philip has followed Jesus and then tells Nathanael that he has found the person foretold by Moses and the prophets. Nathanael objects to Jesus’ home town: can anything good come from Nazareth? Philip answers with an invitation to meet him.

The invitation does not end Nathanael’s story; his encounter with Jesus follows. The portrait can be read beside that exchange without claiming it depicts the episode. The saint known through the cross is also the person who lets an encounter answer a friend’s suspicion.

John 1:46 connects Philip’s portrait with his invitation to Nathanael: come close enough to see for yourself.

Sources

Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia collection record.

Image source and rights declaration.

John 1 — Berean Standard Bible. The paired text read with its surrounding chapter.

Georges de La Tour’s Bible Paintings: The Candle Painter Hidden Under Other Names. Exact-work research, history and interpretive qualifications for this reading.