Saint Sebastian Tended by Saint Irene (Hendrick ter Brugghen) in the Diocletianic Persecution, has the soldier Sebastian shot by archers as punishment for his treason. Looking for his body to bury, Irene found Saint Sebastian tied to a tree and miraculously alive, then nursed him back to health. Rather than painting the scene of Sebastian being shot with arrows, in the midst of his attempted execution, Ter Brugghen chooses to show the moments afterwards where Irene and her maid untie him from the tree. Some attribute this narrative shift to the emergence of the plague within Utrecht in the 1620s: several artists desiring a subject saved from agony, turn
Saint Blaise trade in general. He may also be depicted with crossed candles. Such crossed candles are used for the blessing of throats on his feast day, which falls on 3 February, the day after Candlemas on the General Roman Calendar. Blaise is traditionally believed to intercede in cases of throat illnesses, especially for fish-bones stuck in the throat. Saint Blaise Blaise (; ; also known as Saint Blase), was a physician, and bishop of Sebastea in historical Armenia (modern Sivas, Turkey). According to the "Acta Sanctorum", he was martyred by being beaten, attacked with iron combs, and beheaded. He is the