Zurbarán Comes to the Louvre: The Bound Lamb and a Painter of Silence
Paris has its Zurbarán. Since 7 October the Louvre has been showing Zurbarán (1598–1664) in the Hall Napoléon, a major exhibition of the Spanish Golden Age painter organised with the National Gallery in London and the Art Institute of Chicago. After its summer run in London, the show is in Paris until 25 January 2027, and then moves to Chicago. Among the loans in the London display was one of the quietest pictures Zurbarán ever painted: a lamb with its legs tied, lying on a stone ledge.
What: Zurbarán (1598–1664), exhibition
Where: Musée du Louvre, Hall Napoléon, Paris
When: 7 October 2026 – 25 January 2027 (after London, 2 May – 23 August 2026; Chicago from 28 February 2027)
Who: Organised by the Louvre, the National Gallery, London, and the Art Institute of Chicago
Section: Museums & Exhibitions
What happened
According to the Louvre, the exhibition is not an exhaustive survey but a selection of the finest paintings, arranged in seven parts, both chronological and thematic. It brings together the monumental canvases Zurbarán painted for the monasteries of Andalusia, his portraits and his still lifes, and gives a special place to his son, Juan de Zurbarán (1620–1649), who died young. A final section looks at his influence on later artists, among them Édouard Manet, Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris. The Louvre recalls that the last large international presentation of his work was the 1987–1988 exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Grand Palais.
The curators are Charlotte Chastel-Rousseau for the Louvre, Francesca Whitlum-Cooper and Daniel Sobrino Ralston for the National Gallery, and Rebecca Long for the Art Institute of Chicago. In Paris the show is paired with Sculpting Colour, a display of Spanish Baroque painted sculpture, and one ticket covers both.
Why it matters
In London this was the first major monographic exhibition devoted to Zurbarán in the United Kingdom, with more than forty paintings. The National Gallery listed among its key loans the Saint Francis of Assisi from the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, the Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose from the Norton Simon Foundation and the Agnus Dei from the Prado. Artprice reports that the Lyon Saint Francis, of 1636, which shows the saint’s body standing upright and in ecstasy in his tomb, was restored for the Paris showing. For visitors, it is a chance to see Zurbarán as more than the painter of monks: a painter of silence, of white cloth and of single objects placed in the dark.
The painting behind the story
The Agnus Dei shown at the top of this story, now in the Prado, is the clearest example of that silence. A young ram lies on a grey stone ledge against a black background, its head resting on the stone, its eyes almost closed, its legs tied together with a cord. Nothing else is in the picture. The title, “Lamb of God”, recalls the words of John the Baptist in the Gospel of John, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world”: the bound animal waiting for sacrifice is an image of Christ. Zurbarán painted the subject several times; this version, undated and unsigned, is placed around 1635–1640, measures only 38 by 62 centimetres and was acquired by the Prado in 1986. A version in the San Diego Museum of Art adds a halo and the words “TANQUAM AGNUS”, “like a lamb”. Reviewing the London show, Prospect magazine wrote that its coat was “so woolly you can almost sink your fingers into it”. The image at the top of this story is our vintage poster version of the painting, with the lamb set in a frame of gold ornament and white lilies; the original canvas is shown below. For more sacred images on our blog, read our recent essays on El Greco’s Christ Carrying the Cross and Vermeer’s Christ in the House of Martha and Mary.
Hang Zurbarán’s Agnus Dei as a vintage art poster by Sapiens Verbum, framed by gold ornament and white lilies.
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Hang Zurbarán’s Agnus Dei as he painted it — the bound lamb, the stone ledge, the black silence around it — as a print, canvas or poster from the Sapiens Verbum print shop.
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💬 Over to you: A single bound lamb against a black wall: does an image this simple move you more than a crowded altarpiece? Tell us in the comments.
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