Retable de la Déploration Christ : La Stigmatisation de saint François d'Assise

Joos van Cleve's panel of the Stigmatization of Saint Francis (c. 1522) forms part of a Deposition altarpiece, the Retable de la Déploration, and represents an unusual iconographic combination. Francis receiving the stigmata — the wounds of Christ impressed miraculously on his body during a vision of a seraph on Mount La Verna in 1224 — was a Franciscan subject par excellence. Its inclusion in a Deposition altarpiece made theological sense: Francis's wounds literally replicated Christ's, making him the supreme imitator of the Passion. Joos was working at the height of his commercial success in Antwerp, producing altarpieces for export throughout Northern Europe and the Iberian Peninsula.

The Stigmatization is set in a detailed naturalistic landscape — rocky terrain, trees, distant blue hills — in the Flemish tradition of treating outdoor settings with botanical and geological specificity. Francis kneels in the foreground, arms extended to receive the wounds, while the seraph appears above in a burst of gold light. Joos handles the transition between warm foreground flesh and cool distant landscape through carefully controlled aerial perspective. Oil glazing is smooth and luminous throughout.