Christ Appearing to St. Ampelius

Christ Appearing to St. Ampelius, painted in 1742 and now at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, depicts a relatively obscure saint whose cult was centered on Carthage. The subject's rarity suggests a specific ecclesiastical commission for a church or chapel dedicated to Saint Ampelius. By 1742 Batoni was producing sacred commissions in earnest, establishing his reputation in Rome as a painter capable of major altarpieces alongside his portrait and allegorical work. The RISD Museum's possession of this work in Providence, Rhode Island, reflects the breadth of American museum collecting of European religious paintings from dispersed Italian and international collections over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Oil on canvas requiring Batoni's full command of sacred figure painting: a visionary encounter between the divine and a saint demands careful differentiation between earthly and celestial light. The risen Christ figure would be rendered with the classical idealism of Batoni's figure types, while Ampelius below receives more naturalistic characterization as a historical-legendary figure.