06 works, Today, September 29th, is Saint Theodota's day, her story illustrated #271

Noël Coypel, (1628–1707)

Apollo Crowned by Victory, between circa 1667 and circa 1668

Oil on canvas

Height: 214 cm (84.2 in); Width: 115 cm (45.2 in)

Louvre Museum, Paris

Towards the end of the reign of Licinius, on a Friday, in September, in the year 318, a persecution was raised at Philippi,  anciently Eumolpias, in Thrace. Agrippa the prefect, on a festival of Apollo, had commanded that the whole city should offer a great sacrifice with him. 

Noël Coypel, (born Dec. 25, 1628, Paris, France—died Dec. 24, 1707, Paris), French Baroque historical painter who was the founding member of a dynasty of painters and designers employed by the French court during the late 17th and 18th centuries.

Made an academician in 1663, Coypel served as director of the French Academy in Rome from 1672 to 1676, and in 1695 he was made director of the Royal Academy in Paris. Although Noël Coypel is primarily known as one of the principal producers of decorative paintings for Louis XIV at the palaces of the Tuileries, the Louvre, and Versailles, he is also renowned for such important ecclesiastical commissions as the well-known painting of The Martyrdom of St. James in Notre Dame, Paris. Stylistically his mature works show the influence of Charles Le Brun; but his earlier paintings were in the manner of Poussin, and for this reason he was sometimes called Coypel le Poussin. More on Noël Coypel

Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema

The Women of Amphissa

Oil on canvas.

121,8 x 182,8 cm
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown

Theodota, who had been formerly a harlot, was accused of refusing to conform, and being called upon by the president, answered him, that she had indeed been a grievous sinner, but could not add sin to sin, nor defile herself with a sacrilegious sacrifice. Her constancy encouraged seven hundred and fifty men to step forth, and, professing themselves Christians, to refuse to join in the sacrifice. 

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, OM, RA (8 January 1836 – 25 June 1912) was a Dutch painter of special British denizenship.

Born in Dronrijp, the Netherlands, and trained at the Royal Academy of Antwerp, Belgium, he settled in England in 1870 and spent the rest of his life there. A classical-subject painter, he became famous for his depictions of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire, with languorous figures set in fabulous marbled interiors or against a backdrop of dazzling blue Mediterranean Sea and sky.

Though admired during his lifetime for his draftsmanship and depictions of Classical antiquity, his work fell into disrepute after his death, and only since the 1960s has it been re-evaluated for its importance within nineteenth-century English art. More on Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Antonio Ciseri, (1821–1891)

Theodota was cast into prison

The Martyrdom of the Seven Maccabees, c. 1863

Oil on canvas

Height: 450 cm (14.7 ft); Width: 260 cm (102.3 in)

Florence

Antonio Ciseri (25 October 1821 – 8 March 1891) was a Swiss-Italian painter of religious subjects.

He was born in Ronco sopra Ascona, Switzerland. He went to Florence in 1833 to study drawing with Ernesto Bonaiuti. Within a year, by 1834 he was a pupil of Niccola and Pietro Benvenuti at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence; he was later taught by Giuseppe Bezzuoli, who greatly influenced the early part of his career. In 1849, he began offering instruction to young painters, and eventually ran a private art school. Among his earliest students was Silvestro Lega.

Ciseri's religious paintings are Raphaelesque in their compositional outlines and their polished surfaces, but are nearly photographic in effect. He fulfilled many important commissions from churches in Italy and Switzerland. Ciseri also painted a significant number of portraits. He died in Florence on 8 March 1891. Among his other pupils were the painters Oreste Costa, Giuseppe Guzzardi, Alcide Segoni, Andrea Landini, Raffaello Sorbi, Niccolò Cannicci, Emanuele Trionfi, Girolamo Nerli, and Egisto Sarri. More on Antonio Ciseri

Theodota was cast into prison, where she lay twenty days; all which time she employed in continual prayer. Being brought to the bar, as she entered the court she burst into tears, and prayed aloud that Christ would pardon the crimes of her past life, and arm her with strength, that she might be enabled to bear with constancy and patience the cruel torments she was going to suffer. 

In her answers to the judge she confessed that she had been a harlot, but declared that she was become a Christian, though unworthy to bear that sacred name. 

Agrippa commanded her to be cruelly scourged. The pagans that stood near her, ceased not to exhort her to free herself from torments by obeying the president but for one moment. But Theodota remained constant, and under the lashes cried out: “I never will abandon the true God, nor sacrifice to lifeless statues.” 

Unknown artist

The president ordered her to be hoisted upon the rack

I have no further description, at this time

Unknown artist

Her body torn with an iron comb

I have no further description, at this time

The president ordered her to be hoisted upon the rack, and her body to be torn with an iron comb. Under these torments she earnestly prayed to Christ, and said: “I adore you, O Christ, and thank you, because you have made me worthy to suffer this for your name.” The judge, enraged at her resolution and patience, said to the executioner: “Tear her flesh again with the iron comb; then pour vinegar and salt into her wounds.” She said: “So little do I fear your torments, that I entreat you to increase them to the utmost, that I may find mercy and attain to the greater crown.” Agrippa next commanded the executioners to pluck out her teeth, which they violently pulled out one by one with pincers. The judge at length condemned her to be stoned. She was led out of the city, and, during her martyrdom, prayed thus: “O Christ, as you showed favor to Rahab the harlot, and received the good thief, so turn not your mercy from me.” In this manner she died, and her soul ascended triumphant to heaven in the year of the Greeks 642. More on Saint Theodota

Unknown artist

Saint Theodota

I have no further description, at this time

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