The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence

Jean Baptiste de Champaigne

National Gallery of Art

A pale-skinned, nearly nude man is forced back on a metal grate set over fiery coals in this vertical painting. About a dozen men gather around or near the fire, and they all have pale or tanned skin. The person on the grate, Saint Lawrence, leans back on one elbow, which is chained to the grate. Another chain wraps across his hips, over a white loincloth, and more chains bind his legs. He raises one arm, which is forced down by a cleanshaven man wearing armor. Saint Lawrence has dark brown hair and a mustache. His body is muscled and lit with an orange glow from the embers below. One man, closest to us and to our left, stokes the flames with a long fork. He is bare chested, and wears ochre-yellow, tightly fitting, calf-length pants. A nickel-gray cloth is wrapped around his waist, and he wears sandals on his feet. White and topaz blue fabric, presumably clothing, sits on a basket next to a forked, iron instrument in the lower right corner of the painting. A second man stoking the fire to our right, near Saint Lawrence’s head, has a gray beard and hair, and wears a scarlet-red tunic. Others in the shadowed background look on, wearing robes or pieces of metal armor. Saint Lawrence’s raised hand gestures toward a man sitting on a high plinth, near the upper left corner of the composition. That man wears a lapis-blue, form-fitting breastplate. A flint-blue cape is fastened across his shoulders and wraps over his legs. He leans away with one fist raised to his chest, and he holds a short staff in the other hand, by his side. A dusky rose-pink drapery hangs behind him, and a torch-like basket is affixed to the wall next to him. Two winged, baby-like angels hover over Saint Lawrence’s head. Both have curly blond hair and pudgy bodies. One holds a long palm frond and together they hold a crown of laurel leaves. Azure-blue drapery billows around one and spruce-blue drapery flutters around the other. A moonlit sky and landscape are visible in an opening beyond the crowd.