Saint James the Greater French or Spanish Sculptor

This limestone bust is the fragment of a statue of Saint James the Greater, one of the twelve apostles, evangelist and martyr. He is recognisable by his pilgrim’s hat adorned with painted shells and the sculpted straps that cross his chest, suggesting that he probably carried a breadbox and a gourd slung over his shoulder, as seen in similar full-length statues which were fully preserved. The stone chip located on the left side of the chest is perhaps the remnant of a pilgrim’s staff. The shells, often found in Galicia, were originally eaten by the pilgrims when they reached Spanish shores and then kept as a proof of their journey, as well as containers to drink. They gradually became the specific emblem of those who undertook the way to Compostela, hence the name scallop shell. This symbol was used to show one’s pilgrim status and reproduced in front doors to signify that they were welcome. Significant remains of paint, red, green, yellow and blue in particular, testify that this statue was entirely polychrome; though we are not accustomed to this, as ancient polychromies often disappeared over time. The strictly frontal disposition of this sculpture, which is not carved in the back or even in profile, suggests that it must have been placed against a wall, in a chapel or possibly on a portal. It may have belonged to a group of apostles or saints, but it could also be an isolated statue.




According to the Bible, James the Greater is, with his brother John, one of the first Disciples of Christ, just like Peter and his brother Andrew. He is not to be confused with James the Less, also an apostle (whose nickname refers to being younger or shorter rather than less important). James the Greater, John and Peter are the three fishermen who follow Christ after the miraculous fishing at Lake Tiberias, described in the Gospel of Luke (Lk 5:1-11). According to much later medieval texts, James the Greater went away to evangelise Spain after the Passion of Christ and died there. No historical source supports this legend; it is not attested before the beginning of the seventh century. The miraculous “invention” (this is the term used in medieval sources to describe the finding of tombs and relics of saints) of his alleged tomb in Compostela, Spain in the early ninth century gave rise to one of the main Christian pilgrimages in the world.




The fame of the relics of Saint James grew considerably in the central Middle Ages, with Compostela thus becoming, along with Rome and Jerusalem, one of the three main destinations for Christian pilgrims. The pilgrimage reached its peak in the thirteenth century, draining a certain number of faithful whom the growing insecurity of the roads of the Holy Land discouraged from undertaking the journey to Jerusalem. The influx of pilgrims from all parts of the Western world has led to the multiplication of the paths to Santiago de Compostela and, in the churches located on their route, of the representations of Saint James with the attributes of the pilgrim – cape, staff, gourd, bag and wide-brimmed felt hat decorated with a shell. Thus, in Beauvais, about sixty kilometres north from Paris, a statue of Saint Jacques adorned the portal of the old Saint-Jacques church, south of the city, from where pilgrims left for Compostela (it is currently housed in the Musée de l’Oise, in northern France).

By comparison with the statues of Saint James preserved in the various regions of France, it seems that the Budapest bust is particularly similar to statues from churches in Manche (Lower Normandy), especially the one in the Church of Saint-Étienne in Bacilly, dated from the beginning of the fifteenth century. They share very similar characteristics: both are strictly frontal and the volume of the body is only slightly accentuated; the way of carving the beard, in horizontal and shallow curls, is the same; the hat and the tunic, the corners of which are folded in two opposite tips on the chest, are also identical.



This sculpture comes from the collection of Baron Adolf Kohner, an important Hungarian collector, who possessed in particular a remarkable set of paintings from the second half of the nineteenth century; French (Corot, Courbet, Degas, etc.) but also Hungarian: he donated the famous Skylark by Pál Szinyei Merse to the Hungarian Museum of Fine Arts in 1917. Unlike many of the works from his collection now held in Budapest museums, this piece did not appear in the big auction organised after his death in 1934 (See Báró Kohner Adolf gyüjteménye / Collection Baron Adolphe Kohner, auction cat., Ernst Museum, Budapest, 1934. The catalogue is in Hungarian and in French): it was sold to the museum later, in 1950, by his widow.

Balogh, Jolán, Katalog der ausländischen Bildwerke des Museums der bildenden Künste in Budapest, IV – XVIII. Jahrhundert: 1. Textband Bd. 1, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1975, p. 192., no. 264.

Szmodisné Eszláry, Éva, A Régi Szoborgyűjtemény kincsei, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, 1994, p. 10, 37.

Szmodisné Eszláry, Éva, The treasures of the Old Sculpture collection, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest, 1994, p. 10, 37.