The one evangelist who really does have an angel

Thirty-three titles in this catalogue contain the word evangelist, and almost all of them are here by accident: the letters of "angel" sit inside it. Matthew is the exception. His emblem, drawn from the four living creatures, is the human one, and Western painting winged it until it was indistinguishable from a member of the host. So the one evangelist whose entries genuinely contain an angelic figure is the one whose emblem was never an animal — a coincidence of iconography rather than of spelling.

What the record holds

The catalogue gives Juan Bautista Maíno, filed as Spanish and Baroque. The measured colour family is brown. No date of creation is recorded for this entry, no location is recorded, and no dimensions are recorded, so none of the three is stated here. The subject fields class the work as male portraiture and as a religious subject. Sixteen entries on this site are filed as Spanish.

Still not a rank

Eight titles here name Matthew, and none assigns his companion an order. None could: an evangelist's symbol has no independent standing, no message to carry and no place in a scheme built on proximity to God. The record writes the word in lower case in this entry, which is as good a summary as any. Sixteen titles on this site name an archangel; those figures have names, offices and adversaries. This one has an author to sit beside.