Filippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti 1822

Paul Delaroche painted this scene of Filippo Lippi and Lucrezia Buti, sometime in the mid-19th century. Delaroche, living in post-revolutionary France, would have been acutely aware of the power dynamics between the church and the individual. Here, we see the painter Filippo Lippi, an Italian Renaissance artist and Carmelite friar, convincing the young nun Lucrezia Buti to leave her convent. In Delaroche’s telling, it is a story of forbidden love, of the artist attempting to persuade the young nun to abandon her vows. The artist’s studio is filled with the tools of his trade, suggesting the allure of artistic creation as an alternative to religious devotion. The composition dramatizes the tension between sacred duty and individual desire, a theme that resonates with shifting social values. The emotional intensity, captured in the figures' faces and gestures, invites us to consider the personal struggles inherent in larger social changes, and the way societal expectations clash with our innermost feelings.