In the Jesuit community of Bruges (Belgium) an unknown painting by the
Flemish artist Cornelis Schut (1597-1655) has been discovered, showing ‘Francis
Xavier baptizing the Indians’. The quite spectacular and colourful oil painting
on linen, measuring 104 x 82 cm., turns out to be the bozzetto (preparatory
study) of an altar piece from 1648, that the Jesuits in Madrid had ordered for
their Francis Xavier church (now the cathedral of San Isidro), to be opened in
1651. The famous flower painter Jesuit brother Daniel Seghers (1590-1661), with
whom Schut had collaborated in many paintings, acted as intermediary for the
payment and transport. The painting was later moved to the stairwell of the
Colegio Imperial next to the church. After the suppression of the Society the
painting ended up in the parish church of Santa Cruz del Retamar, a village at
the outskirts of Madrid. There it was destroyed during the Spanish civil war.
As a painter Cornelis Schut, possibly a disciple of Peter Paul Rubens, was much
favored by the Jesuits. His work was present in churches of the Flemish Jesuits,
in Antwerp, Ghent, Ieper and Lier, and also in the Jesuit church of Cologne.
Besides he painted for the professed house of Antwerp. He himself admired the
Jesuits, and had his third son in 1642 baptised Ignatius. How the bozzetto ended
up in Bruges is not known.
Paul Begheyn SJ
Netherlands Institute of Jesuit Studies, Amsterdam