06 Works, Today, May 10th is Saint Thais' day, With Footnotes - #131

Jusepe de Ribera, (1591–1652)

St. Thais  (alternately, St. Mary Magdalen), c. 1641

Oil on canvas

Height: 182 cm (71.6 in); Width: 149 cm (58.6 in)

Prado Museum

José de Ribera (January 12, 1591 – September 2, 1652) was a Spanish Tenebrist painter and printmaker, better known as Jusepe de Ribera. He also was called Lo Spagnoletto ("the Little Spaniard") by his contemporaries and early writers. Ribera was a leading painter of the Spanish school, although his mature work was all done in Italy. 

Longing to study art in Italy, he made his way to Rome via Parma. According to one source, a cardinal noticed him drawing from the frescoes on a Roman palace facade, and housed him. Roman artists gave him the nickname "Lo Spagnoletto".

In 1616, Ribera moved to Naples, in order to avoid his creditors.

His Spanish nationality aligned him with the small Spanish governing class in the city, and also with the Flemish merchant community, from another Spanish territory, who included important collectors of and dealers in art. His career picked up in the late 1620s, and he was accepted as the leading painter in Naples thereafter. He received the Order of Christ of Portugal from Pope Urban VIII in 1626. More on José de Ribera

The canvas shows Saint Mary Magdalene , one of the followers of Jesus Christ closest to him, in a repentant attitude and doing penance for his sins.

St. Thaïs reportedly lived during the fourth century in Roman Egypt. Her story is included in hagiographic literature on the lives of the saints in the Greek church. Two such biographical sketches exist. The first, in Greek, perhaps originated during the fifth century The other sketch comes to us in medieval Latin from Marbod of Rennes (d. 1123). Thaïs also appears in Greek martyrologies by Maurolychus and Greven, however, not in Latin martyrologies. The lives of the desert saints and hermits of Egypt, including St. Thaïs, were collected in the Vitae Patrum (Lives of the Desert Fathers).

Thaïs is first briefly described as wealthy and beautiful, a courtesan living in the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria. Yet in the eyes of the church she was a public sinner. Thaïs, however, makes inquires about the Christian religion and eventually converts. 

St. John the Dwarf

Hearing of this, the hermits begged Abba John the Dwarf to do something, and he went to Alexandria and began to weep in Thaïs' hearing. When she heard the old man weeping for her sins, she repented at once, left her house and everything she had and went into the desert after the saint. 

Marten de Vos

Thais Meretrix, Female Hermits in landscapes, c. 1580

Engraving

Height: 172 millimetres; Width: 225 millimetres

British Museum

St Paphnutius, a monk opening a door to a cell and discovering Thais of Egypt kneeling with a cross; the monk is advised by St Antony at left standing amidst some trees

Maerten de Vos, Maerten de Vos the Elder or Marten de Vos (1532 – 4 December 1603) was a Flemish painter mainly of history paintings and portraits. He became, together with the brothers Ambrosius Francken I and Frans Francken I, one of the leading history painters in the Spanish Netherlands after Frans Floris’ career slumped in the second half of the sixteenth century as a result of the Iconoclastic fury of the Beeldenstorm.


De Vos was a prolific draughtsman and produced numerous designs for the Antwerp printers. More on Marten de Vos


Following her acceptance into the Church, Thaïs is shown a convent cell where she is provisioned for three years. During her years of solitude she performs penance for her sins.

Charles-Antoine Coypel IV

Saint Thais in her Cell, c. 1736

Oil on canvas

84.2 cm (33.15 in.) x 61 cm (24.02 in.)

Château de Versailles, Greater Paris

Charles-Antoine Coypel IV, (French, 1694 - 1752); grandson of Noël Coypel I, nephew of Noël-Nicolas Coypel III, and son of Antoine Coypel II, with whom he trained.

His glorious ascendency helped him to be appointed to the Academy at only 18 (on 31 August 1715), without having competed for the Prix de Rome as was customary at the time; his reception piece was Jason and Medea.

Contrary to other members of his family, whose output was almost exclusively devoted to classical and history painting, Charles-Antoine produced many gallant and humorous subjects. He also had a special interest in pastels after travels with his then-friend Rosalba Carreira in France in 1720 and painted many subsequent portraits in this medium.

Like his father and grandfather before him, he had the best career possible, being promoted adjunct professor on 26 October 1720, professor on 10 January 1730, adjunct rector and rector the same day on 26 March 1746, and finally director of the French Academy from 23 June 1747 until his death on 14 June 1752. He also inherited from his father the positions of Painter of the Duke of Orleans in 1722 and Director of the Drawings and Paintings to the king in 1722. He became Premier Peintre du Roi in 1747.

He had no children, having remained single all his life, and was therefore last in line of the illustrious Coypel family (counting three directors of the Academy). More on Charles-Antoine Coypel IV

One night when she was sleeping and John was standing in prayer, he saw an angel in a nimbus of light coming down to take Thaïs' soul. And John saw that her sudden but deep repentance was more pleasing to God than the years-long but shallow repentance of many of the hermits."

Blessed Thais of Egypt

When she later emerges, it is said, she lives among the nuns of the Egyptian desert only for a brief period of fifteen days, before she dies.

Sts. Mary, Theodora, Thaïs, Synkletike, and Macrina

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