Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Studio of Georges de la Tour
French; 17th-century
Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum
65%
Saint Sebastian Tended by Saint Irene. 1638-39. Oil on canvas (attributed to Georges de La Tour and Studio)
Having little knowledge and zero authority, and on the basis of quality alone, I have to doubt this attribution. Or at least I have to doubt the fullness of Georges's participation in this picture. The orange fleshtones, lithic outlines, and miserly dispersion of light are all, of course, echt La Tour, but what they amount to here is beneath the master's ken. There's too much crowding and displacement of forms at the painting's core, such that the three-figure tableau seems almost to stutter; Sebastian's limbs, though darkened, never lapse into complete obscurity, which keeps the picture's mysterious emergent qualities at bay; the surfaces, especially of skin, are too brushy and indistinct. Just look at the helmet at the left of the painting: the light reflecting off it is so dull! With some tightened modeling and refined poses (which together would probably fix the imprecision of the movements of the light) this picture might be as good as any by La Tour. As it is, it has the effect of a very studious copy. (TFS, 2026)