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Saint Andrew the Apostle
Author, school, workshop
Giovanni Ambrosio Meinardi
Style
Late Baroque
Date
1721
Material and technique
Oil painting on canvas
Size
Height 2.37 x width 1.48 m
Location
The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Wroclaw, Poland
Description
In the centre of the painting, St Andrew stands in counterpoint en trois quartes. Spreading his hands, he raises his head towards the sky, where, to the left, a cloud-sunken angel with bright yellow drapery on his hips walks with a wreath of roses in his right hand and a palm branch carried in his left hand. The apostle is depicted in a landscape on a grey irregular rock platform. A beam lies in front of it, behind it a fallen ship's mast, and behind the saint's back is set amidst reeds a large wooden cross in the shape of the letter 'X'. Above it, three winged angel heads hover among blue-grey clouds against a sky lit up in yellow. St Andrew is shrouded in a dark-grey drapery revealing his naked torso and arms, tied with a crimson sash, the upper end of which is draped over his left shoulder, while the lower end drags on the ground, obscuring his left receding foot and revealing the leg on which the weight of his body rests up to the knee.