Conversion of Saint Augustine
1663 - 1711. Oil on canvas.On display elsewhere
According to his "Confessions", the late conversion of the saint took place in Milan in 387 as a result of the prayers of his mother, Monica, and the instructions of Saint Ambrose. He was sitting under a fig tree in a garden when he heard a voice saying, "Take and read." He opened at random the Epistles of Saint Paul that he had in his hand and noticed this passage: "Do not live in debauchery and immorality. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ" (Epistle to the Romans, 13, 13-14). Immediately the doubtful darkness vanished from him, and he received baptism alongside his friend Alypius and his son Adeodatus.
This work belongs to a set of 27 paintings on the ‘Life of Saint Augustine’, which decorated the lower main cloister of the Convent of San Felipe el Real (Madrid). It was commissioned from José García Hidalgo, who executed it, in an apparently ill-defined collaboration with Alonso del Arco, between 1663 and 1711. The works related to this series belonging to the Museo del Prado´s collection to date are: P03268, P03770 (sketch), P04096, P04754, P04755, P05055, P05117, P05508, P05862 (and its sketch P03514), P06124, P06126, P06135, P06971, P07490. The main iconographic source for García Hidalgo´s work was the collection of prints by the Flemish engraver Schelte Adams Bolswert. The Bolswert prints have helped to correctly identify many of the scenes in the cycle, whose iconographic motifs had been confused or simply lost to history following the Spanish Ecclesiastical Confiscation.
