Saint Christopher Carrying the Christ Child

Saint Christopher Carrying the Christ Child, painted in 1627 and now in the Ulster Museum in Belfast, depicts the legend of the giant ferryman who unknowingly carried the infant Christ across a river, nearly crushed by the gradually increasing weight of the world's sins borne by the child. Christopher, whose name means 'Christ-bearer' in Greek, was one of the most widely venerated saints in pre-Reformation Europe, and his image continued to carry devotional meaning in Catholic Flanders after the split with Protestantism. Jordaens's version, executed when he was at the height of his early maturity, interprets the saint as a muscular labourer whose physical effort makes the spiritual weight of his burden palpable. The Ulster Museum's collection, built around European old masters and Irish art, provides a Flemish Baroque context for this devotional work. The painting's arrival in Belfast likely occurred through the collecting activities of Anglo-Irish gentry during the eighteenth or nineteenth century.

The large canvas is organised around the diagonal thrust of Christopher's body as he wades through the water, a dynamic pose that maximises the sense of physical struggle. Jordaens models the saint's muscular back and arms with his most careful anatomical observation. The river water is rendered with impasto strokes of grey and white that convey turbulence and weight.