The Stoning of St Stephen

Author: Klazina Botke

This dynamic, crowded composition is of the Stoning of St Stephen, one of the first seven deacons. His teachings were a thorn in the side of the authorities in Jerusalem, and he was accused of blasphemy and driven out of the city: ‘But he … looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus, standing on the right hand of God. And said, Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord. And cast him out of the city, and stoned him …’ (Acts 7:55-60). Here we see the moment when Stephen is set upon by onlookers outside the city, who are on the point of killing him, the stones already raised above their heads. The martyr looks up towards God the Father and Christ, who have appeared on a cloud borne aloft by angels. The heavens have opened behind them and choirs of angels sing. The drama of the events is heightened by the dark washes and the stark contrast between light and shade. The many details and small figures lead us to suspect that the sheet is a preliminary study for a very large decoration, possibly an ephemeral work, made for a special occasion.

The scene reflects the Counter-Reformational idea that art should be both theatrical and educational. Around 1600 the dramma cristiana became popular in Florence: plays with a didactic function, based on the lives of Christian saints, martyrs among them.^[1] This development also had an impact on visual art, as can be seen in the Rotterdam drawing, where the effect of the wings of a stage, the illusion of an infinite heaven and the deus ex machina (a plot device in which a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and unexpectedly resolved) can be found.

Van der Sman (2019) recently suggested Bernardino Poccetti as the maker on stylistic grounds.^[2] The style of the elegant figures in the foreground is indeed very reminiscent of the work of this Florentine artist, although the pen lines are more restless than in the majority of his drawings.^[3] According to Porter, it was Poccetti who adopted the Venetian manner of rendering light in his pen-and-ink studies around 1600.^[4] This could be an explanation of the strong chiaroscuro in this drawing and possibly the reason why the sheet was previously attributed to the Venetian master Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594).^[5]

The drawing was lined at an early stage, probably to consolidate the ink corrosion; on the verso there is a schematic layout of a wall in red chalk. What is to go in each of the sections is noted in a few words in Italian. These are reminders by the draughtsman, who also gave the dimensions of the space. The horizontal fold with some small holes in the sheet, and the fact that only one half of it is known, suggest that the backing sheet came from a sketchbook. There does not appear to be any connection, either in style or content, with the scene of St Stephen on the recto.^[6]