Object Image

Saint Humphrey (Onuphrius)

This brooding, wild-looking man is identified by some scholars as Saint Onuphrius, a Christian hermit who spent sixty years alone in the Egyptian wilderness, praying and meditating. Onuphrius is commonly depicted as an elderly, almost disturbed man deep in contemplation, covered by his unkempt hair and beard, and clothed usually in leaves rather than fur.

Salvator Rosa-best known as a painter, but also an etcher, poet, musician, and actor-nurtured a bohemian reputation. His unconventional subject matter-witches, bandits, ascetics-and rugged, moody landscapes made him a hero to artists of the Romantic movement more than a century later.

Credit: The John R. Van Derlip Fund

c. 1660
Oil on canvas
77.5 x 46.8in
64.2
Image and text courtesy of Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2022

Where you'll find this

Minneapolis Institute of Art
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Permanent collection