GENERAL DESCRIPTION
This altarpiece depicts the conversion of St. Paul, one of the fathers of the Christian church. Previously an avid persecutor of Christians, Saul—as he was originally known—was struck by temporary blindness while en route to the city of Damascus. Upon regaining his sight, he changed his name to Paul and became a Christian, going on to become one of the major authors of the New Testament.
This painting served as a model for a painted glass window in St. Paul's Church in Birmingham, England. It is the earliest and smallest of two versions of the subject by Benjamin West. He painted a later, sketchier treatment in response to the acclaim with which this altarpiece was greeted when it was exhibited in London at the Royal Academy.
Adapted from
Wiliam Keyse Rudolph, DMA Label text, 2006
NOTES
c. 1786
Conversion of St. Paul, St. Paul (centre), St. Paul persecuting the Christians (left), and Ananias restoring St. Paul's Sight (right)
Email from John Sawkill (archivist at St. Paul's Church at Birmingham) to Jill Bernstein, forwarded to William Rudolph and Giselle Castro-Brightenburg: "On your web site we are described as a Cathedral, but we are in fact a Georgian church." JR changed 3/15/18
Pages 108-110 "Benjamin West: Springfield (Pennsylvania) 1738-London 1820" [is this book title or just an entry??]by Donald Garstang
"In self-consciously Protestant eighteenth-century Britain, St. Paul had a pride-of-place denied to the other apostles, and it is, therefore, appropriate that two of West's major ecclesiastical commissions of the 1780s showed for their subject-matter important incidents in his life. The first of these was the towering St. Paul shaking the Viper from His Hand after the Shipwreck in the chapel of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, commissioned in 1782 but completed and installed in 1789, the second a 'design' for a painted window with the Conversion of St. Paul for St. Paul's, Birmingham. With the exception of the Devout Men taking the Body of St. Stephen (1776) in St. Stephen's Walbrook London, these two work shave the distinction of being the only ones of their kind to remain in the places for which they ware originally intended.
Having rejected an altarpiece for the chancel of their recently completed church, the wardens of St. Paul's, Birmingham, turned to Francis Eginton in 1785 for a painted scene to fill the grand Venetian window at the east end. Eginton had first worked with Matthew Boulton and then set up as an independent designer of painted windows using an obscure process which he claimed reproduced the effects of painting in oil. He asked West for a model of the Conversion of St. Paul, with a centre section and two side panels corresponding to the tripartite form of the opening. The window was put in place in 1789 and bears an inscription recording the contribution of each man: Designed by B. West, esq. & executed by F. Eginton, MDCLXXXIX (fig. 1). Von Erffa and Staley judged the effect of the whole to be 'powerfully and dramatically impressive, in a Baroque style consistent with West's other works of the late 1780s'."
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
West, Benjamin (American, 1738-1820)
Cultures
Geography
Depicted location: Damascus (inhabited place/Syria): TGN: 7002261
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
Until 1948: Robert Frank [1]
From 1948: Ray Livingston Murphy [2]
From 1990: Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mrs. Beatrice M. Haggerty, purchased from P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., Limited.
[1] [2] The main source for this provenance was a document from P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., Limited.
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
- The Conversion of St. Paul~Learn more about the conversion of St. Paul at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
- Conversion of St. Paul, Benjamin West~View another version of this image that Benjamin West made around the same time.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
TEACHING IDEAS
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General Description
This altarpiece depicts the conversion of St. Paul, one of the fathers of the Christian church. Previously an avid persecutor of Christians, Saul—as he was originally known—was struck by temporary blindness while en route to the city of Damascus. Upon regaining his sight, he changed his name to Paul and became a Christian, going on to become one of the major authors of the New Testament.
This painting served as a model for a painted glass window in St. Paul's Church in Birmingham, England. It is the earliest and smallest of two versions of the subject by Benjamin West. He painted a later, sketchier treatment in response to the acclaim with which this altarpiece was greeted when it was exhibited in London at the Royal Academy.
Adapted from
Wiliam Keyse Rudolph, DMA Label text, 2006
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- The Conversion of St. Paul~Learn more about the conversion of St. Paul at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
- Conversion of St. Paul, Benjamin West~View another version of this image that Benjamin West made around the same time.
Notes
c. 1786
Conversion of St. Paul, St. Paul (centre), St. Paul persecuting the Christians (left), and Ananias restoring St. Paul's Sight (right)
Email from John Sawkill (archivist at St. Paul's Church at Birmingham) to Jill Bernstein, forwarded to William Rudolph and Giselle Castro-Brightenburg: "On your web site we are described as a Cathedral, but we are in fact a Georgian church." JR changed 3/15/18
Pages 108-110 "Benjamin West: Springfield (Pennsylvania) 1738-London 1820" [is this book title or just an entry??]by Donald Garstang
"In self-consciously Protestant eighteenth-century Britain, St. Paul had a pride-of-place denied to the other apostles, and it is, therefore, appropriate that two of West's major ecclesiastical commissions of the 1780s showed for their subject-matter important incidents in his life. The first of these was the towering St. Paul shaking the Viper from His Hand after the Shipwreck in the chapel of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, commissioned in 1782 but completed and installed in 1789, the second a 'design' for a painted window with the Conversion of St. Paul for St. Paul's, Birmingham. With the exception of the Devout Men taking the Body of St. Stephen (1776) in St. Stephen's Walbrook London, these two work shave the distinction of being the only ones of their kind to remain in the places for which they ware originally intended.
Having rejected an altarpiece for the chancel of their recently completed church, the wardens of St. Paul's, Birmingham, turned to Francis Eginton in 1785 for a painted scene to fill the grand Venetian window at the east end. Eginton had first worked with Matthew Boulton and then set up as an independent designer of painted windows using an obscure process which he claimed reproduced the effects of painting in oil. He asked West for a model of the Conversion of St. Paul, with a centre section and two side panels corresponding to the tripartite form of the opening. The window was put in place in 1789 and bears an inscription recording the contribution of each man: Designed by B. West, esq. & executed by F. Eginton, MDCLXXXIX (fig. 1). Von Erffa and Staley judged the effect of the whole to be 'powerfully and dramatically impressive, in a Baroque style consistent with West's other works of the late 1780s'."
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
West, Benjamin (American, 1738-1820)
Cultures
Geography
Depicted location: Damascus (inhabited place/Syria): TGN: 7002261
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
Until 1948: Robert Frank [1]
From 1948: Ray Livingston Murphy [2]
From 1990: Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mrs. Beatrice M. Haggerty, purchased from P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., Limited.
[1] [2] The main source for this provenance was a document from P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., Limited.
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VIDEO ASSETS
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