Description
Italian sculptor (16th century) – Saint Robert.
Full-length figure in carved, lacquered, and painted wood.
Saint Robert is depicted standing in full figure, identified by the inscription “ROBERT..” on the base. He is shown in monastic dress, with a veil framing the face and a wide mantle falling in broad, fluid folds. The left hand holds an attribute while the right supports a book, following a recurring iconographic type in 16th-century devotional sculpture. The carving reveals a confident technical hand, with a treatment of volumes that, while retaining elements of the Late Gothic tradition, moves toward the formal simplification of the Renaissance. The work was most likely made for the liturgical furnishings of a church or private chapel, as a pendant to the figure of Saint Maurus by the same hand.
Condition report: Almost total loss of the polychrome surface and gilding. Structure in good overall condition, with signs of age, wear, and some lacunae.
