Saint Serapion or The Martyrdom of Saint Serapion is a 1628 oil on canvas painting by the Spanish artist Francisco Zurbarán (1598–1664). The work was commissioned by the Mercedarian Order to hang in the De Profundis (funerary chapel) hall of their monastery in Seville (now Museum of Fine Arts of Seville).Watt, Alison. "Beyond the pale". The Scotsman, 3 May 2003. Retrieved 24 April 2009.Brenson, Michael. "Monastic Masterpieces from Zurbaran at Met". The New York Times, 25 September 1987. Retrieved 24 April 2009. Zurbarán is noted for his portrayals of penitent or martyred monks and saints. Critic Tom Lubbock used this painting to illustrate a difference in the way the martyrdom of two different saints were depicted. He contrasted the understated and calm depiction of St. Serapion's violent death, with the equally or more violent death of the Jesuit priest and martyr Saint Edmund Campion (1540–1581) who was publicly hanged, drawn and quartered in London in December 1581.Lubbock, Tom. "de Zurbaran, Francisco: Saint Serapion (1628)". The Independent, 22 August 2008. Retrieved 24 April 2009. The art critic draws a comparison in the manner of depiction of Campion's death and that of Saint Serapion of Algiers (1179–1240), a Mercedarian friar who fought in the Third Crusade of 1196 and was later martyred.Bunson, Matthew; Bunson, Margaret; Bunson, Stephen. Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Saints. Our Sunday Visitor Publishing, 2003. 743
