LOT 0375

Medieval Limestone Gargoyle of a Smiling Horned Devil

CIRCA 15TH CENTURY A.D.

12 in. (8.4 kg total, 30.5 cm high including stand).

Modelled with a threatening expression, his half-open mouth visibly contracted into an evil grin with exposed teeth, short beard to the chin and wavy locks of hair resting on the forehead with two small horns, large goat horns framing the face on both sides; mounted on a custom-made display stand. [No Reserve]

From a collection acquired on the UK art market.
Property of a West Midlands, UK, private collector.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

Cf. Tindall Wildridge, The Grotesque…in Church Art…, London, 1899, pp.16ff., for similar grotesque masks.

From the Romanesque era onwards, images of demons, often carved on the external sides of cathedrals and churches, were strongly linked to the fantastical and monstrous creatures of ancient myth and legend. For theologians, supernatural creatures which could not otherwise be explained were not of God and therefore had to be demonic: their incorporation in the ecclesiastic structures showed that their malevolent powers could be kept under control only through the protection of the church. This origin of Christian demons is likely to have influenced the visual representation in medieval culture as hybrid and monstrous, especially given the increased interest in Greek works from the twelfth century onwards in the West.