Word: malchus
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...quick extemporizing, the youthful Van Dyck also left the canvas with some unresolved problems. The yellow robe of Judas, as he turns to betray Jesus, billows stiffly, forming a disconcerting, nostril-like free form; Peter's violent attack against Malchus (one of the high priest's servants) is nearly thrown off the picture at lower left...
...Dyck himself seems to have been aware of these defects. When Rubens so admired the Betrayal that he asked Van Dyck to make a larger version, Van Dyck repositioned Malchus and remolded Judas' cloak. The results so pleased Philip IV of Spain that, after Rubens' death, he purchased the version, which today hangs in Madrid's Prado Museum...
...legend of 4th century St. Malchus is readymade for Hollywood-complete with caravans and capture by infidels, a fake marriage and a lovelorn heroine who became a hermit herself for love of the saint. The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, sealed up to suffocate in a cave by a persecuting emperor, were placed in miraculous hibernation by the Lord, to emerge 208 years later to their own astonishment and the edification of all good Christians...
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