François Bernard Marie Alphonse de Tombay

FRANÇOIS BERNARD MARIE APHONSE DE TOMBAY (Liège, 1843- Brussels, 1918).
"Saint Philomena".
Carved wood, patinated and gilded.
Presents faults in the polychrome, faults and restorations.
Signed.
Measurements: 149 x 55 x 42 cm; 83.5 x 70 x 49 cm (base).
Devotional sculpture made of carved wood representing a young woman with sweetened features with a crown of roses and an arrow held by her right hand and leaning on her body. This iconography invites to think that it is the representation of Saint Philomena. The legend tells that Philomena was the princess of a city of Corfu, the only daughter of Christian kings who were baptized when Publius, their personal physician, told them that God could help them to have the child they desired so much. At the age of thirteen Philomena traveled to Rome with her parents, when Emperor Diocletian had them summoned to officially declare war. However, impressed by the beauty and elegance of the princess, he offered them peace if the girl was given to him as a wife. The parents accepted, but Filomena refused the deal, since she had made a secret vow of virginity years before. After many futile efforts to convince the princess, Diocletian executed her parents and imprisoned her. Philomena was whipped, thrown into the Tiber River with an anchor tied to her body and assaulted at least twice, but divine intervention saved her again and again from death. Finally, when part of the Roman people began to take her side and protested her imprisonment, Philomena was accused of witchcraft and beheaded. In art, this saint is depicted as a young woman with dark, long, wavy hair, dressed in a white, blue or orange tunic, carrying the palm of martyrdom, the arrows (here omitted) and the anchor, and wearing a royal crown or a crown of flowers on her head.
Son of Joseph Detombay, who was also a sculptor, and Bernardine Dubois, he grew up in a family environment marked by art and sculptural tradition. He trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Liege, where he was a disciple of Prosper Drion, a renowned master of the time. Thanks to his talent, in 1873 he was awarded a scholarship by the Lambert Darchis Foundation, which allowed him to continue his training in Rome, where he lived from 1874 to 1878. During those years, he deepened his knowledge of classical sculpture and developed a style that combined the academic tradition with contemporary influences. After his return to Belgium, he settled in Brussels, where he continued his artistic career and lived until his death in 1918. His work, although less known today, was part of the Belgian sculptural movement of the 19th century and reflects the spirit of his time.