St Paul Commanding St Luke to Accompany Him to Rome

This scene from the Acts of the Apostles, in which Paul instructs Luke to accompany him on his mission to Rome, is an unusual subject in European painting — significantly less common than the major Pauline episodes of his conversion or his epistolary work. De La Fosse's 1692 version, held at the Bowes Museum in County Durham, likely originated as a commission for a chapel or church requiring imagery from the apostolic narrative. De La Fosse was well versed in the full range of New Testament subjects from his extensive religious commissions in Paris and beyond. The Bowes Museum, created in the nineteenth century by John Bowes and his wife Joséphine, assembled one of the most remarkable collections of European fine and decorative arts in Britain, with particular strength in French painting. This canvas represents a relatively intimate treatment of a subject that might elsewhere have been treated with epic scale.

De La Fosse organizes the two apostle figures in close proximity, the compositional challenge being to distinguish Paul's authority from Luke's receptive attention. His characteristically warm palette serves the devotional mood. The handling of robes and gestures reflects his confident figure drawing built from Roman classical study.