Saint Francis Xavier with an angel holding a crucifix

Francesco Bertos

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cofounders of the Society of Jesus, Saints Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556) and Francis Xavier (1506–1552) were canonized together in 1622. These two sculptures may well have been made to mark the hundredth anniversary of their canonization. Saint Ignatius is distinguished by his heartshaped face and the Latin motto of the society, “AD MAIOREM DEI GLORIAM” (for the greater glory of God), displayed on the pages of the book held by the angel beside him. Saint Francis has a walking staff, sign of the peripatetic missionary, and parts his short cape, the mantellina, near his heart, an allusion to his frequent moments of mystical union with God. The two saints are conceived in a conservative spirit, retaining the long, slowly unwinding movements of late sixteenth-century Venetian sculpture, to which Francesco Bertos added brisk, shimmery tooling. It is chiefly the frolicsome demeanor and retroussé noses of the attendant angels that bespeak Bertos, usually seen as a confectioner of quasiacrobatic groups, whether of bronze or marble. These well-ponderated saints, which must have flanked a Jesuit altar of Baroque splendor, stand out as the best of his figures.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art