Standing Figure of a Male Saint (Saint Sebastian?), carved pinewood with traces of pigment, perhaps by Michael Parth, Tyrol (Bruneck/Brunico), ca. 1510-20

The male figure stands frontally on a sloped circular base with his head slightly inclined to the right. He wears a hat and pointed shoes. Under a voluminous cloak, he is clad in a doublet over a shirt, and a pleated gown. The figure, which is slightly chipped in places, is carved from one piece of wood; the back has been hollowed out. It shows numerous cracks caused by shrinking. A rectangular piece of wood, which is now lost, was originally inserted at the back of the base. The dorsum of the nose, both hands, and the tips of the shoes are later replacements, the latter being almost certainly originally square-shaped; the tip of the right shoe, and a few locks of hair are missing. Except for a few traces of gesso at the back, and small patches of pigment on the back of the cloak, the figure has been completely stripped of its polychromy.

Bought from the Emile Peyre collection, Paris, for £30 in 1895.
Although both hands of the figure are later replacements, they may imitate the position of the original ones, and could have held an arrow and a palm-twig, like the figure of St Sebastian in an altarpiece of about 1515 in the chapel of Gossensass/Colle Isarco in the Tyrol (Jopek 2002). Also this sculpture must once have formed part of the corpus or shrine of an altarpiece.
When the sculpture was acquired in 1895, it was thought to be French, and dated to the fifteenth century. However, the type of wood points to an origin in the Alpine area, and the style of the present figure is closely associated with the statues of the Virgin, St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist from the high altarpiece of the church in Toblac/Tobiaco near Bruneck/Brunico by Michael Part, of about 1520 and now in the Diözesanmuseum in Brixen/Bressanone.

Tyrol Bruneck/ Brunico

This figure of a male saint must once have formed part of the central part (also known as corpus or shrine) of an altarpiece. Both his hands are later repleacements, but they may imitate the position of the original ones, and would probably have held the saint's attributes. The figure could, for example, have held an arrow and a palm-twig, like the figure of St Sebastian in an altarpiece of about 1515 in the chapel of Gossensass/Colle Isarco in the Tyrol.

752-1895