Description
Noël Nicolas Coypel combined two stories associated with Saint James the Greater, one of the twelve apostles of Christ. In the foreground is the magician Hermogenes, begging forgiveness. Hermogenes had cast a spell on James, but the saint turned the curse back on him. When James offered to protect Hermogenes against the demons assaulting him, the magician cast aside his pagan texts in favor of Christianity. According to the second legend, James miraculously cured a paralytic man (in the middle ground at right), thereby averting his own execution and causing the prosecutor to convert. Although this painting is relatively small, the clear composition, grand architectural setting, and dignified and expressive poses of the figures endow it with monumental presence.
Provenance
Elliott Gregory (New York, New York); Felix Wildenstein, by gift to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1929.
Accession Number
1929.96
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
Framed: 129.5 x 107.5 x 10.5 cm (51 x 42 5/16 x 4 1/8 in.); Unframed: 102 x 80.7 cm (40 3/16 x 31 3/4 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Gift of Felix Wildenstein
Tags
Painting Baroque (1600–1750) Oil Painting Canvas French Color: Orange
Background & Context
Background Story
Noel Nicolas Coypel (1690-1734) was a French painter known for the elegant, classically composed religious and mythological paintings that make him one of the most important painters of the French Rococo period. The Miracles of Saint James the Greater from 1726 depicts the miracles of Saint James in the elegant, classically composed manner that distinguishes Coypel's best work from the more decorative painting of his Rococo contemporaries. The 1726 date places this in Coypel's most productive period, when he was producing the elegant, classically composed religious paintings that are his most accomplished works, and the Saint James subject shows his ability to combine religious narrative with elegant composition.
Cultural Impact
The Miracles of Saint James the Greater is important in the history of French painting because it demonstrates the elegant, classically composed manner that Noel Nicolas Coypel brought to religious subjects as one of the most important painters of the French Rococo period. Coypel's elegant, classically composed religious paintings—combining the religious narrative of the Counter-Reformation tradition with the elegant composition of the French Rococo—represent one of the most accomplished traditions in 18th-century French painting, and the 1726 painting shows this tradition at its most elegant.
Why It Matters
The Miracles of Saint James the Greater is Coypel's elegant French Rococo: the miracles of Saint James rendered in the classically composed manner of one of the most important painters of the French Rococo period. The 1726 painting shows the combination of religious narrative with elegant composition that makes Coypel one of the most accomplished painters of the 18th-century French tradition.
![Saint Bernard and Saint Catherine of Alexandria with the Virgin of the Annunciation [right panel]](https://api.nga.gov/iiif/e6890364-4d99-4684-a62b-5060ee3c3446/full/400,/0/default.jpg)
