Death of St Iria (1873) by Václav BrožíkOlomouc Museum of Art
"Death of St Iria"
Václav Brožík took inspiration for his famous painting from a “ballad” read in the Framily Chronicle while travelling by train. Soon after his arrival in Munich he painted this monumental composition depicting the climax of the career of a young woman saint.
The legend says that Saint Iria (Irene) from Tomar in Portugal was a pious maiden who betrothed herself to God. She only left her home in order to attend the mass in St Peter’s church.
There she was sighted by a young man named Britald, who fell in love with her and offered to marry her. Iria, however, rejected him and said that she had taken the vows of chastity and wanted to become a nun.
At that time the monk Remigius, whose proposal had also been rejected by the maiden, was spreading rumours of her pregnancy. The angry Britald decided to act at once: he hired a soldier who stabbed Iria returning from the church and threw the dead body in the river.
There it was found by the Benedictine monks. The story captured Brožík’s imagination so much that he painted it twice – in 1873 and in 1876.
Both versions depict the tragic climax of the legend, when the murderer after his gruesome deed lifts the lifeless body of the maiden in order to throw it into the river Nabao.
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