For centuries, the wolf was the predator Europeans met closest to home, the one that took the sheep and stalked the stories told at night. Painters could have left it at that. They kept giving it other parts instead, and on this page a wolf even makes peace in front of a notary.
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How These Were Chosen
A wolf in a painting almost never comes alone. It brings a hunt, a legend, a fairy tale or a prophecy with it, and viewers read it at once as danger. A painter can confirm that danger and show the kill, or turn it around and show the wolf tamed, adopted or nursing children.
Every picture here had to make the wolf carry the scene, either as the main subject or because the story would fall apart without it. A wolf glimpsed at the edge of a landscape was not enough, and sculptures and drawings stayed out.
Each wolf on the list plays a part: prey in a hunt, convert in a saint's legend, foster mother, guide or omen. One legend even returns, painted again more than four centuries later.
12. Sassetta, The Wolf of Gubbio (1437 to 1444)
In this panel by Sassetta, a wolf lays its right paw in the open hand of Saint Francis of Assisi, the way two men shake on a deal. The gesture makes sense only once the story behind it is clear.
The panel belonged to an altarpiece ordered in 1437 by the friars of Borgo San Sepolcro, in Tuscany, with eight scenes from the life of Francis. Seven follow the official biographies of the saint. This one comes from the Fioretti, a collection of tales about him written down in the late 1300s.
The tale is set around 1220 in Gubbio, a town where a wolf was killing. Francis went out beyond the gates to meet the animal, and the two came to terms. The townspeople would feed the wolf every day, and in exchange the wolf would stop killing.
Sassetta paints that agreement as a legal act. At the left, a man on a stool writes it down. He is a notary, the official who records contracts.
Behind Francis, townsmen in bright clothes crowd together, and women watch from the battlements of the gate. At the far right, on the ground beside the wolf, lie the remains of its victims. Those bones turn the handshake into a settlement after real harm, and that is why a notary is there to make it binding.
At a Glance
Artist: Sassetta (died 1450)
Painted: 1437 to 1444
Medium: Egg tempera on poplar
Size: 87 × 52.4 cm (34 × 21 in)
Where to see it: National Gallery, London
11. Titian, An Allegory of Prudence (about 1550 to 1565)
Above a wolf's head, an old man with a white beard and a red cap looks out of the canvas. Beside him, a man in middle age sits above a lion, and a young man above a dog. Titian gave each face its beast, yet nothing in the faces explains why the wolf belongs under the oldest one.