The Death of St Stanislas Kostka

religious

Le Gros' artistic makeup was such a successful synthesis of Italian and French elements that he never lacked work; his commissions, however, frequently embodied retardataire taste, none more so than the extraordinary multicolored St Stanislaus Kostka on his Deathbed. Here Le Gros'work looks back to the tradition of ecstatic or dying saints created by Bernini and Caf, but instead of a white marble figure set off by coloured marbles, colour forms an integral part of Le Gros' work: black touchstone for the Jesuit habit, Sicilian jasper and yellow marble for the bedding, and gilt bronze for the fringe. The saints hands, feet and head are carved from white Carrara marble, with the hair left rough and unpolished and the nails and eyes delicately incised.

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About the Artist

Pierre the Younger Le Gros

1666 – 1719

Pierre Le Gros (or Legros) the Younger, French sculptor, pupil of his father Pierre the Elder, who worked mainly at Versailles. Pierre the Younger won the Rome Prize in 1686, was in the French Academy there 1690-95, and settled there permanently. He worked extensively for Roman churches, especially for the Jesuits, and at the end of his life at Montecassino (Gregory the Great, 1714-19). For the altar of St Ignazius in the Gesù in Rome he made a large marble relief (1695-99) of Religion Defeating Heresy, and a silver statue of St Ignazius which was melted down by Pius VI to pay reparations to Napoleon in 1797. The present statue is a replica. Other works include a relief of S. Luigi Gonzaga, in collaboration with Guillaume Coustou, in S. Ignazio, but his most famous work is the polychrome marble statue of St Stanilas Kostka on his Deathbed for the Jesuits of S. Andrea al Quirinale. He wished it to be placed in the church but the Jesuits maintained that it would interfere with the uniformity of the church, which Bernini had insisted upon. It is in a nearby oratory. Le Gros's art is still Baroque, but in the more restrained manner practised particularly by French sculptors trained in Rome.

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