Saint Teresa of Ávila Interceding for Bernardino de Mendoza in Purgatory
The original, as its museum records it
Every line above is reproduced from the holding institution’s own catalogue entry, which is linked. Where their title, date or attribution differs from ours, theirs is the one printed here.
The file this print is made from
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About this painting
An angel pulls a man free of a pool of fire — Bernardino de Mendoza, named and delivered. The others stay in the fire. He leaves it, Christ at centre tells Teresa, at the first Mass said in his house.
Mendoza was, by Teresa's account, brother to the bishop of Ávila. He died suddenly of illness, leaving his house and grounds at Rio de Olmos to found her convent at Valladolid — the debt this canvas shows being paid.
Rubens made it for a Carmelite side altar in Antwerp, paired with his Education of Mary. The church is gone.
Sources: British Museum, museum no. 1860,0211.515 · Teresa of Jesus (Ávila), Book of Her Foundations, ch. 10 · Wellcome Collection, print catalogue · Historians of Netherlandish Art, review of Rubens Unveiled (KMSKA/Hannibal) · Vlaamse Kunstcollectie / The Flemish Art Collection · KMSKA object page, inventory no. 299
Printed on demand. Public-domain masterwork, reproduced from a 22,460 px master of the original. The whole image is printed — never cropped to fit the sheet — so every sheet carries an archival margin, and the dimensions and resolution listed above are the ones you receive.