VENETIAN SCULPTOR ACTIVE IN THE EARLY 18TH CENTURY
Saint
fruit wood, cm 98 height
The saint is represented standing, with his right hand on his breast and his legs slightly bent as if conceptually proceeding towards divinity. The face is very characteristic; the saint is looking towards the sky, and his beard and hair is formed of slightly curled locks. The sculpture clearly echoes Venetian Baroque models, as those created by Francesco Pianta the Younger or Pietro Morando, both of whom were active in Venice in the second half of the 17th century, and in whose works the soft and gentle draping of the clothes is contrasted by the expressive force of the portraits, still inspired by the style of the late fifteenth century.
But the most important stylistic links with this sculpture are found in Trentino, for instance in the works of Sisinio Antonio Prati (1702-1761), a sculptor originally from Cles, which feature evident similarities with this work: in fact, in the church of the Santi Martiri Anauniensi in Sanzeno there is a Saint Peter whose posture is almost the mirror image of this sculpture, and in the San Paolo di Colle Tomino in Ossana there is a draped garment with the same fluid characteristics
