LOT 127
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Lot 127
NEAPOLITAN SCHOOL (17th century)
Lepers Attended by Angels- a pair of paintings
Oil on canvas
The second initialed L. G. lower right on the interior rim of alms bowl. The paper notice affixed to the shroud of the figure in the second painting inscribed (possibly in Italian) Fate un carita ad non vergogna – It is a shame not to do charity.
29.5 inches x 40 inches each (75 x 101.7 cm)
Estimate:
$3,000 - 5,000
Leprosy was one of the many scourges that the Israelites believed God had inflicted upon mankind in retribution for sins committed. Bearing a mark of leprosy meant a life of alienation as lepers were forced to cover their hideousness, exclaim "unclean, unclean" to those not infected and subsequently live a meager existences on the outskirts of civilization. There are indeed well over 50 verses in the Bible related to leprosy. It is Christ who, in the New Testament, provides a new model for the treatment of those afflicted, instead of offering them isolation, through his act of charity and acceptance Christ offers the lepers both physical healing as well as of course spiritual and emotional healing. The admonition, as echoed on the inscribed notice pinned to the lepers shroud in the second illustrated painting offered above, is addressed in the New Testament book of James (2: 14-17), What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Devotion to the traditional works of mercy exemplified the Catholic Reformation's reaffirmation of the importance of both faith and works and salvation through God's grace, and repudiation of the maxim sola scriptura emphasized by Protestants sects. Not only did they make the Church more effective, but they also reaffirmed fundamental premises of the Medieval Church, a topic front and center at the time the offered paintings were executed.
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