photo: Bruce M. White
On view
Saint Peter Martyr,
late 16th–early 17th century
The examination of materials that comprise a work of art can often lead to new discoveries about its history and fabrication. When this sculpture entered the collections in 1940, information about its origin was unclear, especially regarding where it may have been made. In the 1990s, samples of the wood support were identified as a Cedrela species indigenous to Latin America, indicating it was likely created in the Americas and not in Spain. In 2023, further research was conducted on the sculpture’s polychrome decoration, which survives remarkably intact. Although some sculptural elements are now missing (including a knife once embedded in the top of the head as an attribute of the saint, and a hand that perhaps also once held an object), investigations performed by conservators and scientists in recent decades have provided important material evidence that informs what we now know about this sculpture’s history.
Elena Torok, Associate Objects Conservator, Princeton University Art Museum
Information
late 16th–early 17th century
North America, Mexico (New Spain)
Collection of Stanford White (1853-1906). Herbert G. Bittner, New York (1897/8-1960). 1940 purchase by Princeton University Art Museum [1].
[1] According to Ernest DeWald, Museum Director, the sculpture "was found by a member of the staff among the miscellanea of a rare-book dealer in New York City. The dealer claimed that it had originally come from Mexico and had been in the collection of the late Stanford White. At the time of the disposal of Mr. White's art objects the statue was auctioned off to a cinema producer who apparently used it as an item of "props." It was then acquired by a third owner who eventually sold it to the dealer from whom the Museum bought it." See: Ernest DeWald, "A Baroque Statue in Polychrome Wood," Bulletin of the Department of Art and Archaeology of Princeton University, June 1941, p. 16
