Deacon with candlestick

After training in Toulouse with Antoine Rivalz (1667-1735), Subleyras went to Paris in 1726 and won the Grand Prix the following year. In 1728, he moved to Rome, where he spent his entire career. Thanks to the support of Pope Benedict XIV, in 1743 he received one of the most important commissions of his career for St. Peter's Basilica, a commission that very few French painters had received before him (Simon Vouel, Nicolas Poussin, Valentin de Boulogne). These two sketches paved the way for the monumental La Messe de saint Basile, completed in 1747 (Santa Maria degli Angeli church, Rome). The work illustrates an episode in the life of Saint Basil, one of the four Fathers of the Greek Church, who fought against the Arian heresy and the Arian emperor Valens. Valens, touched by the saint's resistance, wished to attend one of his services on Epiphany. The emperor fainted before the religious intensity of the ceremony and the saint's conviction. Numerous sketches seem to have been made in preparation for this painting, testifying to the painter's attention to detail. The deacon carrying a candlestick (PE.808) is depicted full-length, whereas only the upper part of the figure is preserved in the final version. The deacon carrying a chalice (PE.809) prepares the figure at the foot of the altar who, at the offertory (the moment in the Mass when the priest offers bread and wine to God), brings a chalice to Basil. The two deacons frame Basil in the final composition. These works are emblematic of the painter's style, which enlivens the deacons' chasubles with broad brushstrokes, while demonstrating great talent as a colorist with his cameo of white. This chromatic harmony accompanies a sober layout, reinforcing the solemnity of the moment evoked.