St. Sebastian

St. Sebastian

Lifelike-and nearly life-size-statues such as this arresting Saint Sebastian were prevalent in churches in Renaissance Italy. It is carved in inexpensive wood, which was more easily worked than marble or bronze, and allowed for an easy naturalism. The unknown sculptor was concerned with verisimilitude, carving small white teeth between gently parted lips, and accentuating the saint's realistic ribcage, as well as depicting subtly bluish veins with red blood dripping from wounds-all of which contribute to the statue's striking realism. The arms were separately carved and joined to the torso, and there are numerous joins of the wood on the back and rear thighs. The work was likely once attached to a column or fictive tree trunk, but has been fully finished in the round. Consistent with other known similar wooden statues of the saint, the now-filled holes that once held arrows are only present on the front of the work. The saint's crossed legs impart both a sense of reality, as well as one of nonchalance, in defiance of his would-be assassins.

Because of his many wounds, Saint Sebastian was seen as an important intercessor for victims of the plague, and was certainly one of the most popular saints of the age. The AMAM possesses two other striking representations of the saint, Hendrick ter Brugghen's Saint Sebastian Tended by Irene of 1625 and Giovanni Boccati's altarpiece fragment showing Saint John the Baptist and Saint Sebastian of around 1460

Unknown Artist
Italian

Allen Memorial Art Museum, R. T. Miller Jr. Fund and Mrs. F. F. Prentiss Fund

ca. 1500

Polychromed poplar and spruce wood
Overall (with base): 75 1/2 × 20 × 19 in. (191.8 × 50.8 × 48.3 cm)

Statue

1961.77