Saint Stephen

This half-length figure of a saint comes from a large polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece) which Crivelli painted in 1476 for the high altar of the church of San Domenico, in Ascoli Piceno in the Italian Marche. This is Saint Stephen, Christianity’s first martyr.

Potato-like rocks – representing those with which he was stoned to death – balance precariously on his head and shoulders. He holds his cactus-like martyr’s palm in one hand and a bound book, representing the Gospels, in the other. For the friars of the Dominican Order who commissioned the altarpiece, Stephen was an example of preaching and teaching the faith to non-believers.

Crivelli was skilled at exploiting the optical effects of the different gold surfaces, which must have shone and flickered in the candle-light of a medieval church, with the highly burnished gold of his halo acting as a spotlight on the saint’s face.