St Roch

Lukasz Smuglewicz is a member of the well known Smuglewicz family of artists. The picture of the Medieval pilgrim and healer St Roch (ca 1293–1327) is a good example of a religious picture in which the saint is shown not only with all his usual attributes (an angel guarding him on his pilgrimages, his faithful dog, a pilgrim’s staff, a flask, and clothes decorated with a cockle-shell, symbolising pilgrimage), but also with attributes that emphasise his patronage according to ecclesiastical tradition, protection from the plague. As is customary, the saint’s leg is bare up to the thigh, where the first indications of plague occur. Sick and dying people are depicted on the left of the composition, while an angel is holding a plaque with the Latin inscription PATRONUS a PESTE (patron of those suffering from the plague). Plagues raged in Poland and Lithuania several times, but took the largest number of lives in the early 18th century, and made the cult of St Roch popular.