Provenance: Probably Pangasinan or Cagayan Valley

ABOUT THE WORK

This statue of an unidentified apostle must have stood in the retable mayor or main altar of a church. The style of carving is very similar to santos found in the Dominican Ecclesiastical Province consisting of Pangasinan and Cagayan Valley. The image is shown with his right hand holding a staff and his left hand on his breast. The face and hands of the statue are of ivory, the former being a mask attached to the head. The ivory mask shows definite Chinese influence in the features, particularly the way the eyes are carved. The hair and beard are intricately and painstakingly carved with the individual strands of hair visible. The image is shown wearing a maroon tunic and a yellow cape, both carved with intricate folds and decorated in the 2nd-class style of estofado gilding wherein squares of 22-karat gold leaf are first pasted on certain areas of the painted robes of a statue, after which foliate and floral patterns are outlined on the gold. When the areas outside the design are painted in the same color as the robes, the golden splendor of foliar and floral designs are revealed. The statue stands on a base beautifully carved in the Mannerist Style with strapwork that is typically found in large 17th and 18th-century Philippine colonial santos. -Martin I. Tinio, Jr.