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Saint James the Lesser

Artist:
Workshop of Gil de Siloe (Spanish, active 1475–1505)
Date:
ca. 1500
Geography:
Made in Castile, Spain
Culture:
Spanish
Medium:
Alabaster
Dimensions:
Overall: 29 x 9 11/16 x 7 1/4 in. (73.6 x 24.6 x 18.4 cm)
Classification:
Sculpture-Stone
Credit Line:
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1916
Accession Number:
16.32.153
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 305
The apostle Saint James was one of seven original statues that adorned the summit of the wall tomb of Juan de Padilla, a young knight in the service of the Spanish kings. In style and composition, the statuette recalls the sculpture of Gil de Siloe, yet the quality of execution suggests the hand of a workshop assistant. The tomb is now in the Museo de Burgos.
From the tomb of Juan de Padilla, near Burgos; Georges Hoentschel (French); J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (until 1917)
New York. Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture. "Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel and French Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 3, 2013–August 11, 2013.

Wethey, Harold E. Gil de Siloe and His School: A Study of Late Gothic Sculpture in Burgos. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936. pp. 66-67, pl. 45.

Gómez Bárcena, María Jesús. Escultura gótica funeraria en Burgos. Burgos: Excma. Diputación Provincial, 1988. p. 164.

Gómez Bárcena, María Jesús. "Un Santo Tomás de Gil de Siloe." Archivo Español de Arte 63, no. 249 (1990). pp. 94, 96, fig. 12.

Wixom, William D. "Late Medieval Sculpture in the Metropolitan: 1400 to 1530." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 64, no. 4 (Spring 2007). pp. 44-5.

Krohn, Deborah L., Ulrich Leben, and Daniëlle O. Kisluk-Grosheide, ed. Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel and French Decorative Arts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York and New Haven: Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture, 2013. no. 145, p. 175.

Essays
Pilgrimage in Medieval Europe

Timelines
Iberian Peninsula, 1400-1600 A.D.

"Late Medieval Sculpture in the Metropolitan, 1400–1530": The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 64, no. 4 (Spring, 2007)

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