Ex-Voto of 1662 by Philippe de Champaigne

Ex-Voto of 1662 by Philippe de Champaigne

A father’s thanksgiving

In 1660 Catherine de Champaigne, a nun of the convent of Port-Royal and the painter’s daughter, lost the use of her legs. Physicians could do nothing. Her prioress, Mother Agnès Arnauld, began a novena for her recovery, and on its ninth day Catherine rose and walked. Her father painted this in thanksgiving, and the Latin inscription on the wall at the left records the dates and the facts in the dry language of a legal deposition.

Almost nothing happens

The picture refuses spectacle. Catherine sits with her legs stretched out on a footstool, hands joined; Mother Agnès kneels beside her, eyes lowered. The wall behind them is bare. The only sign of the miracle is a shaft of light falling diagonally across the space between them. The two women wear the white habit of Port-Royal with its red cross, and Champaigne paints the white wool with an exactness that makes it the richest thing in the room.

Port-Royal

The convent was the centre of the Jansenist movement, known for severity and interior prayer, and Champaigne was closely tied to it. The painting’s austerity is not just his style; it is the house’s spirituality made visible.

Where it hangs

The painting is in the Louvre and measures 165 by 229 centimetres.

About this print

Made from a 3,769-pixel photograph of the original, enough to print sharply at up to about 25 inches on its longest side.

Sources: Musée du Louvre, Paris · Wikidata Q5419125 · Wikimedia Commons