Offered by Galerie Sismann
This freestanding sculpture, carved in Tonnerre stone, depicts the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, who was condemned by Emperor Diocletian to be pierced with arrows. With his wrists bound around the trunk of a tree against which he leans, the saint appears serene—his body languid, his eyelids lowered—despite the arrows that pierce his legs and torso. This sense of calm recalls the figure of Saint Sebastian in the church of Semur-en-Auxois (Côte-d'Or), formerly attributed to Antoine Le Moiturier (1425–1495), a sculptor active at the ducal court of Burgundy.
Our sculptor clearly draws inspiration from this model, which enjoyed great popularity among regional artists in the late 15th century. A telling example is the Saint Sebastian in the church of Mont-Saint-Jean (Côte-d'Or), which adopts a similar pose and frames the martyr’s face with long, wavy locks of hair—closely resembling those in our sculpture.
Dressed only in a simple loincloth, the saint stands with his weight on a straightened right leg, while the left bends slightly and is released forward. This pose, repeated across the corpus of comparable sculptures, reflects the early influence of the Renaissance. It introduces a nascent contrapposto and a nuanced observation of human anatomy, suggesting a growing interest in classical ideals.
This antiquizing sensitivity—already present in our work—finds fuller expression in the Saint Sebastian of the church of Saint-Pouange (Aube), created slightly farther north in the first quarter of the 16th century.