Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Saint Matthew
Valentin de Boulogne French
Not on view
Matthew is shown with his emblem, an angel, who indicates an important passage. The model for the evangelist reappears in Dream of Saint Joseph, on view in this gallery, as well as in other paintings. Valentin here gives to naturalist painting the authority of the great works of the Renaissance or, vice versa, gives to the elevated style of Renaissance painting a quality of human vulnerability. Together with Saint Mark, also on view here, and two companion pictures of the other evangelists, this painting—cleaned for the exhibition—was chosen by Louis XIV to decorate his chamber at Versailles, which it still does; it has been lent exceptionally.
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