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Saint Isabel, Queen of Portugal
Portuguese Workshop
Polychrome and gilded gessoed wood
Second quarter of 17th century
164 cm (H) x 65 cm (W)
From the Convent of Encarnação
MASF310/A
A large sculpture from the Convent of Our Lady of the Incarnation in Funchal. When the convent was closed in the mid-19th century, it was transferred to the warehouse of the Funchal City Hall. Because of the large size of the image, it must have belonged to an altar of the Church of the Convent, and not to some patron saint of the convent.
The Queen Saint Isabel was born in 1271, the daughter of the King of Aragon. She married D. Dinis, King of Portugal, and became a nun in Santa Clara in Coimbra after the death of her husband in 1325. She died in 1336. Her miracle of turning bread into roses is particularly well-known.
The Saint, dressed as a Clarissan nun, has a tunic and mantle that are richly wrought, with a tight coif that hides her hair and allows the face to be seen. At the waist, she has a purse with a motif representing a shell, characteristic of the pilgrimage of Santiago de Compostela. Her right arm is raised and she must have held a rosary in her hand. In her lap, roses can be seen, a characterisation of the iconography of her miracle.
The model is serene and compact, in an attitude that is similar to that from the Portuguese workshops of the counter-reformation Mannerism, in which the restraint of gestures accompanies the attenuation of the exhibition of feelings and emotion. A vague and contained expression, ethereal, with iconic rigour, shines through in the flesh tones of beautiful effect and exceptional modelling. The sculpture must have been executed shortly after the Saint was canonised in 1625 by Urban VIII.
Some similarity can be seen with the set of the Visitation, which is in the Frederico de Freitas House-Museum in Funchal. |
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