Saint Sebastian In Clothing, An Italian Renaissance Marble Sculpture

A rare Italian marble sculpture, dating from the 15th to the 16th century, depicting Saint Sebastian fully clothed.

During the Renaissance, between the 15th and 16th centuries, artists sometimes depicted Saint Sebastian in period clothing, holding an arrow—a symbol of his martyrdom. The most famous of these depictions is undoubtedly Raphael’s portrait of Saint Sebastian, dated 1501, but there are also paintings in which the saint is depicted in full figure: the panel from Giovanni Spanzotti’s polyptych, “Saint Sebastian and Saint Catherine of Alexandria” (circa 1500), originally 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 in 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 in a short tunic, a flowing cloak, and a wide-brimmed hat, holding an arrow in his hand. Our sculpture corresponds perfectly to this iconography, particularly that of the fresco on the Way of St. James. The fact that both paintings come from the Alessandria region suggests that our sculpture also originated in this area: between the 15th and 16th centuries, Monferrato was 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—in particular, the Certosa di Pavia and the Milan Cathedral—and numerous stonemasons’ workshops were established there. In addition to Carrara marble and Candoglia marble—imported from Tuscany and Lombardy, respectively, for large-scale works—local stones were also used: in Piedmont, various types of white marble were quarried, such as Paesana white marble, whose delicate veining resembles that of our sculpture.

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

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Dimensions:
H 20 cm

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