This dramatic polychrome wood sculpture depicts the moment from the Apocalypse when the archangel Michael casts the rebel Satan out of heaven and into hell. Michael is dressed in the highly detailed garb of a Roman soldier, and his rainbow wings reflect the varied palette and exquisite attention to painting across the sculpture. Ruby glass accents are visible on his sandals and armor, and the eyes of both devil and saint are made of glass. Michael’s noble bearing and elegant features contrast with Satan’s twisting limbs and agonized expression. The complexity of the figures is matched in the technique to produce such a lively composition: it is comprised of forty sections carefully painted and puzzled together. In nearly pristine condition, with few repainted areas (rare for a religious sculpture of this type and age), it follows in the tradition of polychromed wood carving that persisted in Naples at this time. The medium, which lends itself to dramatic realism, remained popular there due to the city’s geographic proximity and political ties to Spain, where polychromed wood was the preferred material for sculptors over the terracotta and stone used primarily throughout Italy.
More broadly, the sculpture’s drama and movement are characteristic of the Counter-Reformation period, when a reenergized Catholic church commissioned paintings and sculptures designed to inspire awe and wonder. Michael’s victory was a popular theme during this time of reinvigoration, symbolizing the triumph of the church over heresy, and of good over evil. Saint Michael was also one of the protectors of Naples following a major earthquake in 1688. A silver sculpture by Lorenzo Vaccaro of the same theme and similar composition was exhibited publicly at the end of the seventeenth century in the Treasury of San Gennaro, located in the Cathedral of Naples, where it became a model for several smaller sculptures, this one among them.
2025
