Philippine Calvary. Philippines, 18th century.

Philippine Calvary. Philippines, 18th century.
Carved ivory, silver, gilt silver, textiles and wood; glass urn.
With antique certificate.
Measurements: 59 x 22 x 44 cm (with urn).

This delicate devotional composition represents a Calvary, a sculptural group characteristic of the Philippine religious production of the XVIII century, where the mastery of the carving in ivory and the sumptuousness of the colonial gold work converge.

In the center rises the dark wooden cross, with arms topped with gilded silver ornaments, on which hangs the figure of the crucified Christ, finely sculpted in ivory. The body of the Redeemer, of harmonious proportions and contained naturalism, presents the traces of the torture -bleeding wounds and slight inclination of the head-, reinforcing the characteristic dramatism of the Philippine late baroque. The perizoma or purity cloth, chiseled in gilded silver, and the INRI cartouche underline the technical refinement of the whole.

At the foot of the cross are the three traditional figures of Calvary: the Virgin Mary, St. John the Evangelist and the Magdalene, all of them with ivory heads and hands, wooden bodies and articulated arms, richly adorned with original textiles embroidered with metallic threads and silver applications. The expressiveness of their faces, the treatment of the natural hair and the theatricality of the postures respond to the emotional aesthetics of Hispano-Philippine art, heir to both the Iberian Baroque and the local sensibility.

The set is conserved under its original urn of convex glass, with golden base, frequent element in the domestic devotional objects destined to the private prayer of the Creole and peninsular families established in the archipelago.

For its workmanship, noble materials and state of conservation, this Calvary constitutes an exceptional testimony of the Philippine religious sculpture of the Spanish colonial period, paradigmatic example of the artistic syncretism between East and West.