LOT 0306

Large Medieval Carved Limestone of St Martin on Horseback with Cloak and Beggar

FLEMISH, 15TH CENTURY A.D.

30 3/4 in. (108 kg, 78.5 cm high).

Carved in high relief, limestone scene depicting Saint Martin of Tours on horseback with his sword raised to cut off a portion of his military cloak to share it with a beggar; the saint wearing articulated armour buckled at his forearms and on his lower leg, with a billowing cloak draped across his shoulders; the horse shown in a contrapposto stance with one foreleg raised, with ornamental caparison and harness pendants; the beggar depicted with emaciated form wearing only underclothes, hands pressed together in supplication; to the reverse, traces of original fixing to a wall or architectural setting; restored.

Ex Richard Chester Master, Cirencester, UK.
Kate Thurlow & Robin Thompson Collection, 21 October 1998.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.13384-259005.

Cf. statue with similar theme in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon.

The subject derives from the episode recorded by Sulpicius Severus in his Vita Sancti Martini (c. 397 A.D.), in which the young Roman soldier Martin, stationed at Amiens, divided his cloak to share it with a freezing beggar; that same night, he dreamt that Christ appeared to him wearing the half of the garment which he had given away. Martin subsequently converted to Christianity and eventually became Bishop of Tours, where he was venerated as one of the most important saints of early medieval Western Europe; his feast day is celebrated on 11th November. The present relief belongs to a tradition of Flemish devotional sculpture that flourished in the 15th century, when the prosperous towns of the Low Countries — Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, and Mechelen — became pre-eminent centres of religious carving exported across Northern Europe. Comparable examples to this piece are held in the collections of the Musée de Cluny, Paris, and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.