Felipe de Bigarny (Langres, France, 1475 - Toledo, 1543)

Felipe de Bigarny (Langres, France, 1475 - Toledo, 1543)
"Saint Roche"
Carved, gilded and polychromed wooden sculpture. 81 x 34 x 17 cm.
In her report, Dr. Del Río notes that, due to its size and format, this sculpture seems to have belonged to a reredos that the master Felipe made for the nobility and high clergy of the kingdom of Castile which was greatly praised for its artistic novelty in the early 16th century.
Consequently, del Río dates this sculpture from 1500 – 1520, before the new techniques that sculptors such as Diego de Siloé and Berruguete brought from Italy.
Del Río also compares this Saint Roche to the carvings of Saint Andrew and Saint Lawrence in the reredos of the Adoration of the Magi in the Church of Saint Giles in Burgos, due to the cut of the hair and beard.
There is also a striking similarity between this figure and the James the Pilgrim painted by Juan de Flandes, circa. 1507: “This Saint Roche, more than a neck strap, appears to wear a separate or superimposed wide collar, pointing to the similarities with the James the Pilgrim painted by Juan de Flandes (ca. 1507, Museo del Prado). Additionally, both noticeably wear the same ribbed adornments with a fringed border at the edge of the collar. It reminds us that Bigarny and Juan de Flandes had an important relationship, because they worked for the same contracting parties at Palencia Cathedral and the University of Salamanca, from 1505 to 1519.”
The lot comes with Dr. Isabel del Río’s report, dated December 2017.