Saint Ambrose (c. 1796–99): Art, History and Details

Saint Ambrose (c. 1796–99) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746–1828).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This work belongs to a series depicting Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory, key figures of early Catholicism. Saint Ambrose (about AD 340–391), the bishop of Milan, resolved important theological conflicts within the church and worked effectively with advocates of Roman paganism. The low viewpoint and large scale suggest that this painting hung high on the wall of a religious institution, but its original location remains unknown. In the late 1700s, Spain expelled all the Jesuits and sparked a transformation of the church. Many of these reformers turned back to early church history for inspiration, and this painting was probably commissioned by one of these new organizations.

Object facts

• Title: Saint Ambrose
• Date: c. 1796–99
• Creator attribution: Francisco de Goya (Spanish, 1746–1828)
• Culture: Spain
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 148.7 x 225.3 x 10.3 cm (58 9/16 x 88 11/16 x 4 1/16 in.); Unframed: 190 x 113 cm (74 13/16 x 44 1/2 in.)
• Collection: P - Spanish before 1800
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1969.23

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1969.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 57, no. 1 (January 1970): 1–50.
• Lurie, Ann Tzeutschler. “Goya: St. Ambrose.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 57, no. 5 (May 1970): 131–140.
• Gudiol, José. Goya, 1746-1828. New York: Tudor, 1971.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.