San Sebastiano Saint Sebastian oil painting

Addendum; My opinion is the artist is NOT Flipart and possibly is NOT a copy after Flipart. We therefore sell as an unsigned  and unattributed.

In Malta . A small 18th century Italian school oil on canvas . Probably restretchered and relined. A later frame perhaps early 19th century. An attribution on reverse which is indistinct and unauthenticated . [ Does it mean Carlo Iart? or Charles-Joseph Flipart (1721–1797) .We make no warranty or attribute this painting  ] . It could be an ‘after’ painting , not a ‘source’ painting.

St. Sebastian had prudently concealed his faith, but in 286 it was detected. Diocletian reproached him for his supposed betrayal, and he commanded him to be led to a field and there to be bound to a stake so that the chosen archers from Mauretania would shoot arrows at him. “And the archers shot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin is full of pricks, and thus left him there for dead.” Miraculously, the arrows did not kill him. The widow of Castulus, Irene of Rome, went to retrieve his body to bury it, and discovered he was still alive. She brought him back to her house and nursed him back to his health attribution Carlo Iart? or Charles-Joseph Flipart (1721–1797)