St. Sebastian

Abstract

This terracotta sculpture of St. Sebastian in the Oratorio di San Sebastiano, Florence, with oil painted flesh tones, hair, and great spurts of blood from each of the arrow holes (originally filled with metal arrows, visible in a photograph from the early 1900s), includes a loincloth made of fabric dipped in gesso. The sculpture has been compared to images of the saint by Leonardo del Tasso, made of wood (Sant'Ambrogio, Florence) and by Benedetto da Maiano, made of marble (Arciconfraternita della Misericordia, Florence). This sculpture is in a tabernacle, framed by oil paintings of the Penitent Magdalene and St. John the Evangelist that have been attributed to Filippino Lippi. (A later painting by Bilivert is also a part of the current ensemble.) Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.