St. Joseph

home collections sculpture St. Joseph
INV ESC.210
São José

PLACE/DATE
Spain, Seville (?), 18th century (3rd quarter)

MATERIALS
Painted and gillt wood, silver halo, crown and stick

DIMENSIONS
Alt. 111 cm

INV
ESC.210

This wooden sculpture-reliquary depicts St. Joseph with a halo and the crowned Infant Jesus, in one hand, and a flowering stick of lilies that served as his staff, in the other.

These are elements alluding to his dignity as Jesus' adoptive father and, above all, to his purity. On the trunk is a gilded oval frame, which holds a relic of his staff inscribed in a silver filigree medallion. The pose of Jesus' father as a young man, wrapped in a large, rich mantle of florid decoration and exuberant colours, fully translates the image of glorification that St. Joseph received in the 18th century as one of the favourite saints of popular devotion.