Lot 34: Portrait of Gentleman as a pilgrim, on a track, holding a staff with a gourd and a Bible

Edward Daniel Leahy (1795-1875) Portrait of Gentleman as a pilgrim, on a track, holding a staff with a gourd and a Bible indistinctly signed and dated 'E. Le..hy/1836' [?] (lower left) oil on canvas 31.5 x 25 in. (80 x 63.7 cm.)

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Edward Leahy trained and at the Dublin Society Schools winning several prizes between 1811 and 1814. By 1820 he was living and exhibitin regularly in London at both the Royal Academy and the British Institution. According to the Gospels, St. James was the son of Zebedee and brother of St. John and was one of the three witnesses to the Transfiguration of Christ and was with Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was the first of the apostles to die for the faith; King Herod Agrippa having him executed in Jerusalem in 44 AD. Tradition has it that St. James preached in Spain and that after his execution his body was removed to Iria Flavia in north west Spain and ultimately to Compostella where by the middle ages his sepulchre had become one of the most famous places pf pilgrimmage in the world as it remains today. The sitter in this portrait may have been a British or Irish Roman catholic pilgrim who had been on the pilgrimmage to Santiago de Compostella.