The Daughter of of Emperor Gordian is Exorcised by St Triphun

Carpaccio's Exorcism of the Daughter of Emperor Gordian by Saint Triphun from 1507 is part of his cycle for the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, depicting the miraculous healing attributed to one of Dalmatia's patron saints. The exorcism subject—the dramatic expulsion of a demon from a possessed woman before an audience of assembled dignitaries—gave Carpaccio an opportunity for the kind of complex figure composition, ceremonial setting, and dramatic action that best demonstrated his narrative powers. The Schiavoni cycle, painted for a confraternity of Dalmatian merchants in Venice, celebrated saints of particular importance to the Dalmatian homeland, and Carpaccio's treatment combines hagiographic piety with the documentary precision that made his narrative cycles simultaneously devotional objects and visual records of contemporary Venetian ceremonial culture.

The exorcism scene is rendered with Carpaccio's characteristic combination of dramatic narrative and precise descriptive detail, set within a convincing architectural space.