PIUS X, Pope (1911)

Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto was born on June 2, 1835. He was elected Pope on August 4, 1903 and died on August 20, 1914, aged 81. He was beatified in 1951 and canonised in 1954.

—

The picture was offered to Bishop Thomas J. Shahan of the Catholic University in Washington DC by the artist on December 3, 1914 as the following reply in the artist’s papers attests:

My dear Mr Muller-Ury,

I have your letter of December third, and I hasten to thank you for your generous offer of a large portrait of Pius X. I will gladly pay the expenses of boxing & shipping it, and am willing to pay for a frame, to cost not more than one hundred dollars. Your gift is a very generous one, and I thank you again in the name of the University for your munificent act. We shall give the portrait a place of honor in the University, and shall ever hold you as one of our cherished benefactors.’

In another letter of January 18, 1915, Bishop Shahan wrote to the artist to tell him the picture was ‘…now very well hung…in its fine new frame…’

The picture bears some resemblance to the 1907 (and 1908) portrait as was indicated in the Catholic University Bulletin for January 1915:

‘The University owes to the generosity of the distinguished portrait painter, Mr. A. Muller-Ury, of Rome, a splendid portrait of our late Holy Father, Pius X, and resembles much the famous portrait of that pope by the same artist in the American College at Rome. The portrait is hung in the University parlors…’