While
on the first leg of our Father’s day adventure Sunday (See here) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Matthew and I stumbled on a statue of St.
Catherine of Siena while wandering in the medieval section looking for suits of
armor. I have probably seen the overwhelming majority
of art related to my patron saint, but I have never come across this statue.
Subsequently
I looked up the statue on the Met’s website, and the artist was a Sienese named Fulvio
Signorini and the bronze was completed in around 1600 apparently for a
Franciscan church but in Siena. I can
find nothing on Signorini. Here are the
pictures.
0382,
0383, 0394
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| Fulvio Signorini's St. Catherine of Siena |
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| Fulvio Signorini's St. Catherine of Siena |
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| Fulvio Signorini's St. Catherine of Siena |
As
you can see, the right hand shows the sign of the stigmata, she’s wearing the
Dominican cloak, and her face has a striking resemblance to what she really
looked like. What is interesting is that
she is carrying a book. That would be a
sign that she is a doctor of the church, but St. Catherine wasn’t given the
title until 1970. Signorini couldn’t
have possibly envision she would be recognized as doctor back in 1600. Interesting.
This statue should get more dissemination. I would love to buy a small copy.
If anyone finds more information on Fulvio Signorini or his statue, please comment with a link here.
Pinterest
does have a close up photo of his statue.
Interesting, indeed. Thank you for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure Brian.
ReplyDelete