Saint Sebastian Dressed Italian Renaissance Marble Sculpture

A rare Italian marble sculpture dating from between the 15th and 16th centuries depicting a clothed Saint Sebastian.

During the Renaissance, between the 15th and 16th centuries, artists sometimes represented Saint Sebastian in period costume, holding an arrow, a symbol of his martyrdom. The most famous of these representations is undoubtedly Raphael’s portrait of Saint Sebastian, dating from 1501, but there are also paintings where the saint is depicted in full: the panel from a polyptych by Giovanni Spanzotti, “Saint Sebastian and Saint Catherine of Alexandria” (circa 1500), from the church of San Francesco in Casale Monferrato, in the province of Alessandria (Piedmont), now in the Brera Gallery; and the fresco of Saint Sebastian and Saint Stephen, dated 1450, in the Gothic church of San Gottardo a Camino, also in the province of Alessandria. In both depictions, the saint is portrayed as a young nobleman with long hair, richly dressed in the fashion of the time with a short tunic, a flowing cloak, and a wide-brimmed hat, holding an arrow. Our sculpture corresponds perfectly to this iconography, particularly to that of the fresco in the Camino. The fact that both paintings come from the Alessandria region suggests that our sculpture also originates from this area: Monferrato was, between the 15th and 16th centuries, a crossroads of intense artistic exchange between Lombardy, Piedmont, and Liguria. The Alessandria region was strongly influenced by the grand ducal building projects of the Visconti and Sforza families, especially the Certosa di Pavia and Milan Cathedral, and numerous stonemasonry workshops were established there. Besides Carrara and Candoglia marble, imported from Tuscany and Lombardy respectively for large-scale works, local stones were also used: various types of white marble were quarried in Piedmont, such as Paesana white marble, whose subtle veining is reminiscent of that in our sculpture.

We can therefore conclude that this is a Renaissance sculpture, dating from the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, originating in northern Italy and intended for private devotion in noble residences for personal prayer.

Dimensions:
H 20 cm