Laurent de La Hyre, Saint Paul Shipwrecked on Malta (1630)

This oil painting, *Saint Paul Shipwrecked on Malta*, was made in 1630 by the French Baroque painter Laurent de La Hyre (1606-1656). It depicts the closing drama of the Apostle Paul's voyage to Rome, as narrated in the final chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. (Scholarship)

The subject: shipwreck and survival

Paul, held as a prisoner and appealing to Caesar, was being taken by sea toward Rome when the ship carrying him was caught in a violent storm and driven aground. Acts describes how the vessel struck a shoal and broke apart: "they ran the ship aground; and the forepart indeed, sticking fast, remained unmoveable: but the hinder part was broken" (Acts 27:41, Douay-Rheims). (Scripture) All aboard reached land alive. "And when we had escaped, then we knew that the island was called Melita" — Malta (Acts 28:1). (Scripture) There, warming himself at a fire, Paul was bitten by a viper and yet took no harm, an incident the islanders read as a sign (Acts 28:3-6). La Hyre's composition gathers the survivors on the shore in the aftermath of the wreck.

History of the painting

La Hyre was among the leading painters of early-seventeenth-century Paris, known for a lucid, classicising manner. The picture is dated 1630 and is now held by the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama. (Scholarship) It is in the public domain by age.

Relevance to Paul

The shipwreck on Malta is the last great episode of the Acts narrative before Paul reaches Rome, and it turns on the very Roman citizenship — exercised in his appeal to Caesar — that had carried him across the empire from his native Tarsus. It belongs to the journey whose memory St Paul Global Week marks. On 28-30 June 2027, around the 29 June Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, a faith-tourism gathering organised by Funny Tourism will bring pilgrims to Tarsus and Mersin. Explore the programme and read why Tarsus.