St Francis (Francisco de Zurbarán)

St Francis is a 1659 oil painting of Francis of Assisi by the Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán. It was the only work by the artist known in France before the 19th century.

St Francis (1659) by Francisco de Zurbarán

It seems to have been intended for a monastery in Madrid, before Maria Theresa of Spain gave it to the 'Colinettes' Franciscan monastery in Lyon. This had been founded by the marquis and marquise de Coligny in 1665. On the French Revolution it was sold to a Lyon painter and engraver Jean-Jacques de Boissieu and was used in 1797 as the model for one of his prints, Les pères du désert. A few years later, in 1807, de Boissieu sold it to the musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. Now, it sits in the MFA. It was long misattributed to José de Ribera, before being reattributed to Zurbarán in 1847.