PIUS XI, Pope (1922)
Description:
Half-length. Oil on canvas, 37.1/2” x 25.3/4” (87.5 cm x 65.5 cm), signed upper left ‘A. M. Ury’ and dated upper right ‘Vaticano 1922 x’.
Location:
North American College, Janiculum Hill, Rome, Italy.
Bibliography:
New York Tribune, October 20, 1922
New York Times, October 21, 1922
New York Herald, October 21, 1922
New York Herald, Sunday, November 5, 1922 – “Painting the Pope’s Portrait” by Willis Steell, pp.5 & 20 (reproduced)
Achilles Ambrose Damian Ratti was born on May 31, 1857. He was elected Pope on February 6, 1922 and died on February 10, 1939.
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The Duluth Herald, Monday July 17, 1922, announced AMERICAN ARTIST WILL PAINT POPE’S PORTRAIT on its front page, and that the artist (photographed) had sailed on the Berengaria recently with a commission to paint the Pope. Muller-Ury arrived in Rome to paint his first portraits of Pope Pius XI on September 1, 1922, and started work on them ten days later. He left Rome on October 11, 1922. At this time he executed three pictures of the Pope. In March 1923 the Pope created Muller-Ury a Knight of St. Gregory the Great.
The letter X (actually underlined on the painting) after the date indicates the month of October 1922. It was painted at the same time as two others, one in the same format now in St Joseph’s Seminary.
