A Blessed Abbes Receiving the Host from the Hands of Christ 1690

Giovanni Battista Gaulli painted ‘A Blessed Abbess Receiving the Host from the Hands of Christ’ sometime in the 17th or early 18th century, but the exact date remains unknown. Here, Gaulli gives us an ecstatic vision of a nun receiving communion directly from Christ, surrounded by angels in a heavenly realm. The work exemplifies the Baroque style then flourishing in Italy, a style closely linked to the Counter-Reformation and the Catholic Church's renewed emphasis on religious art as a tool for inspiring piety and devotion. The painting would have originally been situated in a church or chapel, likely commissioned by a religious order. The artist's biography reveals close ties to the Jesuit order, which suggests that the painting was designed to promote religious fervor among the faithful, and to assert the church's authority in an age of religious and political upheaval. To further understand its meaning, one could research the specific order for whom it was commissioned. The study of religious history might reveal who the Abbess was in real life.