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On the modern museum matte is an unsigned attribution to Calvaert written in pencil, probably that of Walter Vitzthum. The drawing does indeed suggest a late sixteenth century Bolognese hand and the formal language is close to that of Calvaert himself.
The wall decoration for which this design was intended was presumably over an altar dedicated to the Eucharist. The Old Testament story of Elijah visited by an angel was a prolepsis for the Eucharist. The prophet, who had been drive into the desert by Jezebel, was about to die from hunger and thirst, when an angel appeared to him bringing sustenance. In the central compartment of the drawing the a
The two saints kneeling in the foreground are the little-known St. John of Matha, a native of Faucon in Provence, and St. Felix of Valois, who lived at the turn of the twelfth century. Both were founder members of the Order of the Trinitarians, whose main mission was to free captives taken by the Moors, either by offering ransoms or themselves, by proxy, hence their role as patron saints of prison
This is a preparatory study, with only some differences, for Calvaert´s painting of the Holy Family with St. Catherine and the Infant St. John the Baptist in the Gemäldegalerie, Oldenburg, dated 1584. The drawing is squared for transfer and most of its principal outlines are followed in the painting. One of the main differences between the two, however, is that in the left background Jo
