A Bishop
Spanish School
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
1600 - 1699
Materials
Painted and gilded wood
Measurements
1038 x 305 mm; 450 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
Seville
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 514384
Summary
Painted and gilt wood, statue of a Bishop, Seville, Spain, 1600-99. A Spanish seventeenth-century wooden statue of a standing bishop wearing a heavy cope and mitre, holding a crozier in his right hand. With his left hand he draws the lower part of his cope across his body, to reveal the elaborate painted and gilded imitation of a silk fabric. The sculpture is extensively gilded and painted, the draperies gilded using the estofado technique, in which a layer of gold leaf is overlaid with pigments that are then scratched away using tools to produce patterns with a brocade effect. The face and hands painted naturalistically. The bishop stands upon a large and fantastical socle, made from an inverted wall bracket carved with three large clam shells.
Full description
The sculpture represents an unidentified bishop saint. A rather generalised depiction, it dates from the seventeenth century and was probably made in a workshop in Seville. It may for example be compare with a similar-sized standing figure of a nobleman in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Inv. 71.67. Susan L. Strattin, Spanish Polychrome Sculpture 1500-1800 in United States Collections, exh. cat., the Spanish Institute, New York 1993, p. 168), or a bishop saint in the Hispanic Society of America, New York (Inv. 1954.254. Spanish Polychrome Sculpture 1500-1800 in United States Collections, p. 174). The most impressive part of the sculpture is the spectacular base, formed from three large inverted shells. Jeremy Warren 2020
Provenance
Bequeathed to the National Trust by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) with the house and the rest of the contents.
Marks and inscriptions
Back of socle : Remains of a label, mostly torn off, but the number ‘282’ and fragments of handwriting still visible.
Makers and roles
Spanish School, sculptor
References
Christie, Manson & Woods 1971: The National Trust, Anglesey Abbey, Cambridge. Inventory: Furniture, Textiles, Porcelain, Bronzes, Sculpture and Garden Ornaments’, 1971, p. 146.