St. Lucy

Abstract

This painted wood statue of Saint Lucy was made for the Church of Santa Lucia in Ferentino in the late 15th or early 16th century and is currently housed in the Museo Diocesano in Ferentino. St. Lucy's attribute is the dish with eyes, as according to her legend, when a young man admired her beauty, she was so horrified at the possibility of provoking lust that she plucked out her own eyes, which were then miraculously restored to her. An extensive conservation campaign, completed in 2023, involved the removal of later accretions, layers of paint, and dirt and the consolidation of the paint layers. The work seems to have suffered extensive paint loss, especially in the saint's red dress. Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.