The Adversary!: 'Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched'

Name: SIR JOSEPH NOEL PATON, R.S.A. (1821-1909)
Brand: The Adversary!: 'Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched'
Price: 20000.00 GBP
Availability: OutOfStock

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GBP 25,000 - GBP 35,000

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SIR JOSEPH NOEL PATON, R.S.A. (1821-1909)

The Adversary!: 'Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched'

SIR JOSEPH NOEL PATON, R.S.A. (1821-1909)
The Adversary!: 'Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched'
signed with monogram and dated '1876' (lower right) and further signed and inscribed 'Sir Noel Paton, R.S.A., H.M. Limner/The Adversary./'Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched' (on the artist's label attached to the reverse)
oil on canvas
15 x 8³⁄₄ in. (38.1 x 22.2 cm.)
in the artist's designed frame

George Lillie Craik (1798-1866).
with Jeremy Maas, London.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 3 November 1993, lot 195.
The Collecting Eye of Seymour Stein; Sotheby's, New York, 11 December 2003, lot 110, where purchased by the present owner.

The Magazine of Art, 1897, p. 267, illustrated p. 265.
M.H. Noel Paton & J.P. Campbell, Noel Paton 1821-1901, Edinburgh, 1990, pp. 99, 101.

Edinburgh, Royal Scottish Academy, 1879, no. 242.

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Lot Essay

This powerful depiction of Satan, known as The Adversary!, is accompanied by a verse from St Mark’s Gospel. The preceding verse reads 'If your hand curses you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled then to have two hands and go in to hell, into the unquenshable fire'. A larger work, Satan watching the sleep of Christ, by Paton is in Kirkcaldy Art Gallery.