Saint Francis and sparrow, 2025

Saint Francis and Sparrow, 2025, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm. Available.

Saint Francis and sparrow, 2025, depicts Saint Francis of Assisi in his moment of renunciation. His bare shoulders suggest the moment that he stripped off all his clothes and gave them back to his father when he chose poverty over a rich life.

The painting is set at dawn, representing Francis’s dawing realisation that he has been called to a life of poverty. The sparrow on his shoulder is a symbol of that poor life of a beggar he chose. Over his right shoulder, we see the mountain of La Verna in Tuscany where he was later to go into retreat and eventually receive stigmata, the physical wounds of Christ on the cross in his hands, feet, and side. The halo, a solid piece of brass is reminiscent of the haloes in the works of Piero della Francesca whose home town of Sansepolcro lies between Assisi and La Verna and is about 20km (12 1/2 miles) from where the work was painted. .

The stars in the sky above show the constellation of Libra, representing Francis’s traditional birth date of 26 September. On the right hand side is the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter which was visible in the dawn sky when the painting was being created.

For all enquiries about the work, please contact the artist directly.