19th Century French School - Monks Excavate and Find Ancient Relics

19th Century French School
Monks Excavate and Rediscover Ancient Relics
Oil on canvas
56 x 46.5 cm (68 x 57.5 cm with frame)
Beautiful period giltwood frame
Good condition (some restorations - see photo of the back)

It is likely that this painting represents the "invention" (and therefore the rediscovery) of relics. Perhaps those of Saint Benedict, as the habit of Benedictine monks is recognizable.
There is an account of this rediscovery of the relics of Saint Benedict at the Monte Cassino monastery near Rome by an anonymous contemporary (published in French by Father Dom François Chamard, Benedictine of the Abbey of Ligugé in France (Paris, 1882)):
"In the name of Christ. There was in France a priest instructed in the school of his pious abbot. He resolved to go to Italy to seek out where the bones of the holy Father Benedict lay disgraced. Finally, he arrived at a deserted place, 70 or 80 miles from Rome, where Saint Benedict had once built a monastery and strengthened it by fostering fraternal charity among those who lived there.
(...)
"Having then made a more careful examination of the place, they discovered a sepulchral stone, which they drilled. Having then broken it, they found themselves in the presence of the bones of the holy Abbot Benedict."
(...)
"God had doubtless revealed these holy relics to these pious kidnappers in order to make the holiness of his servant more dazzling to the eyes of men. This goal was almost immediately achieved; for the linen used to enclose the body appeared to be stained with blood so crimson that one would have thought it emanated from a living body. »

Our painting recalls a work by the troubadour painter Charles Louis Lesaint entitled "Canons Excavate and Find Ancient Relics," a painting he exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1822. Charles Louis Lesaint was one of those troubadour painters often copied in his time for his anecdotal, picturesque, and romantic subjects.

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