Page 180 - The mystery of faith

JOSÉ MONTES DE OCA

(Seville c. 1675 – 1754)

18. Saint Benito of Palermo

c. 1725–1750
Wood, polychromed, with glass paste (eyes)

122 cm (48 in.)
PROVENANCE: Private Collection, Milan

T his remarkably expressive work represents Saint Benito of Palermo – one of the few saints in
the Canon of the Church who was of African origin – standing in a wholly frontal, yet
slightly relaxed stance. The arms are open, the left hand holding an open book, the right
hand posed to hold a quill, which is now lost. Concentrated within the round, compactly
modelled head, the face radiates all of the work’s powerfully emotive energy. In the wide, slightly
furrowed brow, piercing gaze, the straight nose, the pronounced naso-labial folds and philtrum leading
to the beautifully modelled, slightly parted lips the sculptor showed a virtuoso command of the wood,
managing to shape a wide variety of contrasting surfaces and volumes within a very small space. For
the eyes, the sculptor used inset glass paste to highlight the carved modelling, and to lend a startling
sense of immediacy to the facial expression.1 The closely cropped hair is carefully detailed to express
both a tactile lifelike quality, and to appear accurate and typical of the saint’s race. The figure is
completely covered by a loose, un-girdled cassock with long open sleeves that fall heavily in straight
channel folds and loops. The thick carapace effect of the drapery is relieved by subtle variations in the
drapery folds, particularly above the left knee, which is slightly advanced to suggest a contrapposto
pose, with the weight concentrated n the right leg. Equally, the cassock breaks in realistic folds to reveal
the shod feet, placed on the small oval base with toes pointed slightly out, which also adds a subtle
sense of levity and movement to an otherwise completely frontal pose. The cassock was completely
polychromed in a white or ivory tone, then covered in gilded floral motifs, and incised in narrow stripes
to add further texture to the surface and folds. Most of this polychromy in the cassock is relatively well
preserved. With respect to the artist’s approach to the facial features and the modelling of the left hand
holding the open book, we are reminded of the work of seventeenth-century Sevillian masters, most
particularly Juan Martínez Montañés and his pupil Juan de Mesa. However, the heavily channelled
almost shell-like cassock is treated with a completely different sensibility, and in this respect is closer to
later Sevillian examples, which were largely informed by the work of Pedro Roldán. This melding of
techniques in such an evident product of the eighteenth century as the present work points towards an
attribution to José Montes de Oca, a sculptor who worked during the first half of the eighteenth century
and whose work is typified by a somewhat antiquated and eclectic quality.

The researcher Lorenzo Alonso de la Sierra Fernández considered Montes de Oca to be ‘one of the most
attractive personalities of eighteenth-century Seville, fundamentally because of his ability to maintain a

180