BOLIVIA, 1972, Bitti's Madonna and Child with St. John, Scott
548
2003, Bitti's Adoration of the Shepherds, Scott 1215
Bernardo Bitti learned his art in Rome among the Mannerist painters who followed in the train of Michelangelo. He entered the Jesuits in 1568 at the age of 20. He was sent to Peru, and arrived in Lima the first of May in 1575 (forty years after the city's foundation). The following year the viceroy sent him to Titicaca to be in charge of the local missions. His works may be found in Lima, Arequipa, Cuzco, Huamanga, Puno, Juli, La Paz, Chuquisaca, Potosí and elsewhere. He is considered to have introduced Mannerism into South America. Art historian Manuel Soria called him the best painter of sixteenth century South America. According to Ricardo Estrabidis Cárdenas, the presence of Bitti in America represents evangelization by means of the image. More
BOLIVIA, 1971, Munich Stamp Exposition S/S, Michel B35
with Bitti's Madonna and Child with St. John
BOLIVIA, 1982 and 1987, Christmas souvenir sheets, with works of Rubens and Drurer
and both with Bitti's Madonna and Child with St. John, Michel B126 and B170Brother Emmanuel Pereira (Yu Wenhui), SJ
(1575-1633)
SOVEREIGN MILITARY ORDER OF MALTA, 2010, for the 4th centenary of Ricci's death
featuring the 1610 portrait of Ricci, now in the sacristy of the Church of the Gesù in Rome
Yu Wenhui, known by his Latinized name Emmanuel Pereira, was the first Chinese to serve the Jesuits in China. He was born in Macao in 1575, converted to Christianity and was sent to Japan in the 1590s to study at the art school set up there by Giovanni Nicolao, SJ, returning to Ricci in 1598. He is perhaps best known for his painting of Matteo Ricci (above), done shortly after Ricci's death. Ironically, Ricci thought his paintings mediocre and had sent another Chinese to Japan to be trained to replace him. Pereira took his vows as a Jesuit brother on Christmas 1617 in Japan, at a time when the Jesuits there were subject to persecution or expulsion.
Brother
Daniel Seghers, SJ
(1590-1661)
BELGIUM, Christmas 1980, Seghers' Garland and Nativity, Scott
1065
Daniel Seghers, a Jesuit brother, was born in Antwerp, and raised by his widowed mother in the Calvinist faith. In 1610, recently arrived in Antwerp, he became a student of Jan Brueghel the Elder and a member of the painters' guild of St. Luke. It was from Brueghel and Rubens that Seghers derived his characteristic style of painting religious scenes within garlands of flowers, so that he became known as “The Painter of Flowers, the Flower of Painters.” Under Brueghel's influence he returned to Catholicism and entered the Jesuit novitiate at Malines in 1614. After his final vows in 1625 he signed his pictures as Daniel Seghers Societatis Jesu. About 200 of his paintings are known to survive. More
ANTIGUA, Christmas 2004, Scott 2791, 2793
Seghers' Floral Wreath with Virgin and Child ($1) oil on canvas, Museo
del Prado, Madrid, Spain
and his Madonna in a Floral Wreath ($8) oil on copper, Museum voor
Schone Kunsten, Ghent
PALAU, 2005, Christmas issue Madonna in a Floral Wreath, Scott 845Brother Ignatius Sichelbart, SJ
(1708-1780)
CHINA (Taiwan), 2008, Bailutu (A Hundred Deer) by Ignatius Sichelbart, SJ from the National Palace Museum, Scott 3836
(click on image to see enlarged scroll)Ignatius Sichelbart (Chinese name Ai Ci-meng, style name Sing-an) was a Jesuit brother, born in Neudeck, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) on September 9, 1708, who became a Cing court painter in 1745 (during the reign of Emperor Cianlong), working in the palace along with his brother Jesuits Giuseppe Castiglione and Jean Denis Attiret. He died in Beijing on October 6, 1780. He was especially good at painting birds. Bailutu (or A Hundred Deer) depicts a group of deer in a great variety of poses. The full painting is printed in a se-tenant block of eight stamps, in five different sizes which allows the block to be broken up into compositionally coherent individual stamps. One is tempted, of course, to compare this with Castiglione's One Hundred Horses.
Brother
Antonio Moscheni, SJ
(1854-1905)
INDIA, 2001, Scott 1870
St. Aloysius College Chapel in Mangalore is decorated by the paintings — frescoes, tempera and canvas panels — of an Italian Jesuit Brother Antonio Moscheni, done from 1899 to 1901. Moscheni was born in Italy, in the village of Stezzano, in 1854. He studied at the Academia Carrara in nearby Bergamo. Decorating the Santuario della Madonna dei Campi in Bergamo was his first major work and brought him much fame, as did his exhibits in Milan in 1883 and Turin in 1884. In 1889 he entered the Jesuits, and was assigned to decorate several churches in Italy, Albania and Yugoslavia, before going to India. His paintings can be found in Holy Name Cathedral in Mumbai and the Santa Cruz Basilica in Cochin, where he fell sick and died, but St. Aloysius Chapel is his best work. The above stamp — issued on January 12, the day in 1880 that St. Aloysius College began — features a panel showing the early life of St. Aloysius. More
Brother Martín Coronas Pueyo, SJ
(1862-1928)
SPAIN, 1936, based on a Coronas' painting of Ignatius, Gálvez Specialized Catalog of Spain 142
Spanish cinderella, issued by the Mission Stamp Bureau in Madrid, based on a Coronas' painting of Xavier at Xavier castleCoronas' other works decorate the novitiate at Veruela, the Palace of the Holy Duke of Gandía, the Holy Cave at Manresa, and other houses and Churches of the Society of Jesus. He left more than 150 paintings, cartoons for tapestries, and other works, mostly of a religious or historical nature, especially on Jesuit Saints and Blesseds.
Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik, SJ
(1954 - )
SLOVENIA, 2008, mosaic of Fr. Rupnik, personalized stamp
St. Florian, patron of firefighters (2004), from the Church of St. Florian in Krnice, SloveniaMarko Ivan Rupnik was born 28 November 1954 in Zadlog, Slovenia near Idrija. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1973, studied philosophy in Ljubljana and from 1977-1981 studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Then after theological studies at the Gregorian University, he was ordained in 1985. Remaining at the Gregorian, he began a specialization in missiology and received his doctorate in 1991, his dissertation being on the theological meaning f art in the writings of Vjaceslav Ivanovic Ivanov. From 1987 to 1991 he had lived in Gorizia at the Jesuit "Morning Star" Center where he worked mainly with youth. Since 1991 he has worked in Rome at the Centro Aletti, of which he is the director. He teaches at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, the Pontifical Gregorian University, Saint Anselm Pontifical Liturgical Institute, and gives lectures and seminars in numerous other institutions. His work as an artist, particularly in mosaics, has been prolific, widely exhibited and honored.
