Philippe de Champaigne - Ex-Voto of 1662

Philippe de Champaigne
La Mère Catherine-Agnès Arnauld et la Sœur Catherine de Sainte-Suzanne de Champaigne
(called Ex-Voto of 1662)
1662
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

A Versatile Painter

Portraitist of Richelieu, creator of numerous religious pictures notable for their movement and color, Philippe de Champaigne here presents us with a Jansenist painting.

Sœur Catherine de Sainte-Suzanne de Champaigne, sister of the artist, is shown seated on a chair in her religious habit, with legs outstretched on a stool.  Kneeling next to her, with a rosary hanging from her belt, is Mère Catherine-Agnès Arnauld, one of the reformers of the Convent of Port-Royal-des-Champs.   

The Inscription on the Wall

This consists of an extensive dedication:  To Christ, the sole doctor of souls and of bodies.  Sœur Catherine Suzanne de Champaigne, after a fever of 14 months, astonishing her doctors with the stubbornness and range of her symptoms, most of her body paralyzed, the doctors giving up the case, thanks to the prayers of Mère Catherine-Agnès recovered in an instant her full health and renewed her vows.  Philippe de Champaigne set down this image of the miracle as a testament to his joy.  1662.

Sœur Catherine is quite clearly already cured.  Mère Catherine joins her in giving thanks. 

The Empty Crucifix

The scene is set in a monastic cell.  The walls are empty – leaving space for the inscription – except for a wooden cross with three nails present but with Christ absent.  Since the two nuns also have large red crosses on their habits, that makes three crosses, as on Calvary.  There is an additional chair at right, on which rests a black book with red pages, more likely a book of hours than a bible.  

Open on her lap, the subject of the miraculous cure has a locket made of precious materials, a contrast to everything else in the room.  One assumes this is a relic, likely a bone fragment from the patron saint of the two Catherines, and that it may also have played some role in the miracle.  

The cell is lighted by a window high on the left, not visible in the picture, but which casts a shadow of the cured woman on the wall beneath the crucifix – a miraculous beam that fractures the convent enclosure, bathing the white robes of the elect.

– translated and adapted from Le Musée imaginaire de Michel Butor: 105 œuvres décisives de la peinture occidentale (Paris: Flammarion, 2019)