1650
oil
panel
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Meekness is a 1650 oil by Eustache Le Sueur, a Baroque work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
You see a woman in pale robes, her hands folded gently, a lamb at her feet. This painting is one of eight panels showing the Beatitudes—qualities Jesus praised in his Sermon on the Mount. Le Sueur made them for a private chapel in Paris, where they lined the walls like quiet guides. The gold background isn’t just decoration; it was meant to glow in candlelight, making the scene feel sacred and still. If you like this calm, clear style, look up *glazing*—the technique Le Sueur used to build soft layers of color.
Eustache Le Sueur painted the eight Beatitudes, the ideal qualities Jesus identified in his Sermon on the Mount in the Bible, for the private chapel in his patron Guillaume Birssonnet’s Paris home. This personification of meekness was part of that decoration and accompanied an altarpiece of the Annunciation, monochrome scenes of the life of the Virgin Mary, and a ceiling depicting her Assumption. The Beatitudes, with their patterned gold ground, lined the lower story of this elegant ensemble. Only the Annunciation altarpiece and two of the Beatitudes survive.
Commissioned by Guillaume Brissonnet (died 1674) in 1650 for the chapel of his Paris town house [according to Guillet de Saint-Georges [1690], p. 164]; by descent to his son, Jean Baptiste Brissonnet (died 1698) [the early history of the house and its chapel decorations is recounted by Mérot 1987, pp.244-5]; sold with the house to Vincent d'Invault, 1698; sold to Jacques Turgot (died 1722), maître des Requêtes, 1714; by descent in 1757 to Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (died 1781); in 1775 the house was sold and the decorations dismantled; at Turgot's death, the paintings passed to his heirs…
London, Heim Gallery, Religious and Biblical Themes in French Baroque Painting, 1974, cat.7.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Eustache Le Sueur or Lesueur was a French artist and one of the founders of the French Academy of Painting.
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