FRANCKEN, Ambrosius I
(b. ca. 1544, Herentals, d. 1618, Antwerpen)

The Martyrdom of Sts Crispin and Crispinian

1600-10
Oil on panel, 269 x 217 cm
Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp

Scenes of martyrdom demonstrate a reviving cult of saints, and are a major theme in many of the paintings that Ambrosius Francken made for Antwerp churches in the first decade of the seventeenth century. The raw and sensual realism is striking in pictures such as the present painting in which the stress lies strongly on the emphatic display of the most grisly tortures.