St James Polychromed and gilded wood, Spain First quarter of the 16th c.

This beautiful sculpture in polychromed and gilded wood represents the apostle Saint James the Great, identifiable here by his staff and his pilgrim hat. As indicated by the flatand bare reverse of the sculpture, our work must once have taken place within one of the many niches of a monumental altarpiece in carved polychrome and gilded wood, similar to those which made the glory of the ymagiers of the Spanish Golden Age. Indeed, our work can be compared to certain sculpted elements of altarpieces made in the first quarter of the 16th century, and in particular to certain sets made by Felipe Bigarny. Contemporary and collaborator of Alonso Berruguete or Gil de Siloé, Bigarny strives to make Burgundian-Flemish and Italian influences coexist within his works. Its panel representing Saint Matthew and the Angel, now kept in the Valladolid museum, presents, in addition to characters of similar proportions and similar draperies, a singular polychromy superimposable on that of our Saint James. It is characterized by large ornamental stripes applied to the gilding, which horizontally punctuate the clothes of the protagonists. These motifs signify the common belonging of these two works to the same local artistic tradition.