Patron saint of the homeless and of the mentally ill. No U.S. copies.

[Benedict Joseph Labre]. Le Veritable Portrait Du Vénérable Benoit Joseph Labre, Né le 26 Mars 1748, dans la Paroisse de S. Sulpice d’Amette Diocese de Boulogne en France mort le 16 Avril 1783. Paris: chez Chiquet rue des Mathurins. [40.5 x 29.1 cm the sheet, 28.4 x 19.7 cm the plate], [1] f. etching. Marginal wrinkling and edge wear, minor toning, stamps on verso of Cologne collection of Kasimir Hagen (1887-1967).
 
 
Very rare (no U.S. copies) large, late 18th-century etching depicting the recently deceased Benoît-Joseph Labre (1748-83), the Franciscan Tertiary who wandered as a beggar across Europe, visiting the major Catholic shrines. Beatified in 1860 and canonized in 1881, Labre is now considered the patron saint of the homeless and of the mentally ill.
 
The anonymous etching carries the address of Chiquet in Paris. Labre is depicted in full length and wearing tattered clothes. Pilgrimage churches in the background (e.g., St. Peter’s in Rome) allude to Labre’s travels, and sketches of beggars, the ill and the infirm point to his poverty. 
 
The French text at the foot of the print is a sketch of Labre’s biography. It can be translated “The True Portrait of the Venerable Benoit Joseph Labre, born March 26, 1748, in the Parish of Saint Sulpice d’Amette, Diocese of Boulogne, France, died April 16, 1783. He was the son of J. B. Labre and Anne Barbe Gransir, living honestly on their property and having fifteen children, nine of whom are still living, and of whom he was the eldest. He died in Rome in the odor of sanctity on April 16, 1783. Work will begin on his beatification. From his death to this day, sixty-three miracles of the first order have already been recorded, among them a 22-year-old girl born mute who suddenly received the ability to speak, and a woman suffering from dropsy who was placed before everyone on the very stone covering the tomb, and moment later, she was found perfectly cured, her broken legs and chronic ulcers at once all healed and disappeared. His life, beginning in childhood, was a continuous series of austerities, prayers, and fasting.”
 
 
OCLC and KVK locate no copies of this print, but its existence is cited here and there in old print catalogues. Other versions of the subject are known. 
 
*Mario dal Bello, Benedetto Giuseppe Labre: La strana storia del barbone di Dio; André Dhôtel, Benoît Labre: Le pouilleux de Dieu; Hervé Bréjon, Saint Benoît Joseph Labre; Agnes De la Gorce, St. Benedict Joseph Labre.