Description:

inscribed, upper right: quamdiu fecitistis uni ex meis minimis / mihi fecistis. Math. 25.; inscribed, centre left: Prudentia; inscribed, centre right: Zelo (recto); inscribed with corresponding inscriptions (verso)
pen and black ink and grey wash over black chalk, heightened with white, incised for transfer
206 x 156 mm

Provenance:

Private collection, New York, until 2025

Note:

Incised for transfer, this highly finished drawing by Vitus Felix Rigl was conceived as a design for an engraving published by the engravers and publishers Joseph Sebastian (1710–1768) and Johann Baptist Klauber (1712–1787). Based in Augsburg, the Klauber brothers operated the principal European centre for the production of Catholic devotional prints in the mid-eighteenth century and played a decisive role in reforming Christian iconography. Working in the Rococo idiom characteristic of designers employed by the Klaubers – among them Johann Wolfgang Baumgart and Gottfried Bernhard Göz – Rigl depicts Saint Vincent de Paul, the patron saint of charitable societies canonised in 1737.

The related engraving belongs to a series of forty prints depicting saints within elaborate ornamental borders, enriched with biblical quotations and personal attributes. In the present drawing, a quotation from Matthew 25 is inscribed above the design and marked with a "+" which corresponds with the second "+" at the text’s ultimate engraved destination in the putto’s prayerbook. Signed impressions from the series suggest that Baumgartner and Rigl were the principal designers, assisted by collaborators. While no preparatory drawings by Baumgartner are known, several works by Rigl can be found in the Kunstsammlungen & Museen Augsburg, including a study for Saint Francis Xavier.

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