Saint Joseph with the Child

Author: Filippo Quattr’occhi (Gangi 1738 – Palermo post 1812)

Date: End sec. XVIII

Material: Wood carved, painted and gilded

Dimensions: cm 186x62x59 (Saint Joseph), cm 114x39x33 (Child)

Location: Milazzo, church of San Giuseppe

Preserved in the eponymous church of Milazzo, founded according to the Capuchin priest Francesco Perdichizzi in 1565, “in time that infested the plague in the city”, the statuary group represents Saint Joseph standing in the act of leading by hands Jesus child, according to a rather conventional and widespread iconography, codified from the second half of the sixteenth century and connected with the impulse given to devotion towards the putative father of the Son of God, the Carmelite Order and the writings of Saint Teresa of Avila, in order to see the Holy One venerated by the Catholic Church with the cult of protodulia, recognizing in his figure a great means of communion with Christ, To the point of pushing later on the Pope Pius IX to proclaim him patron of the universal Church, with the Decree Quemadmodum Deus of 8 December 1870. Depicted as the attentive guide of Jesus, Saint Joseph is equipped with the traditional stick (element of modest and recent workmanship), attributed in this type of iconography, Just the traveler, with reference to the journey made to Bethlehem and escape in Egypt, and clearly alluding to the dried up that according to the tradition apocryphal – reported by the protogospel of James and later also in the Golden Legend of Jacopo da Varazze – would be miraculously flowered to indicate the chosen by God as the spouse of Mary, as the green germination apical that connotes him immediately.

Objects in place of living devotion, the simulacrum was reported in the past by Antonino Micale and Giuseppe Petrungaro to Baldassarre Pampillonia, sculptor active in Palermo, his native city, and in various localities of Western Sicily between the end of the seventeenth century and the first half of the following century, author of several marble statues and wood but also of various altars and architectural decorations, For example, the Saint Joseph with Child adorning the façade of the church of Palermo of the Teatini fathers or the altar of the chapel of the Virgin of the sanctuary of Gibilmanna, executed on a design by Paolo Amato. Dated by the two scholars to 1734, the Milazzese group was executed, according to them, on commission of the local confraternity of San Giuseppe having its seat in the homonymous church, like the confraternity of the Wedding of Sant’Anna and, more recently, that of the “rigattieri” (traders of fish).

Lampanti and indisputable are, indeed, the affinities that the group Milazzese exhibits with other sculptures of the Quattrocchi and those of similar subject – as the Saint Joseph with Child of the church of the Convent Madonna della Dayna , in Marineo, and those of the mother churches of Villalba and Polizzi Generosa – it goes well beyond the stylistic and formal aspect. Our work appears, in fact, almost identical to them, both as regards the figure of Saint Joseph, and as far as that of the little Jesus. Such and what is the dress of our Saint, with wide round neck that leaves open the collarbones and forms a fold in the center, equal to the draping – now soft now angular and geometric – of the coat falling from the left shoulder and whose cloud of folds contributes to translate a sense of movement, of a slow but sure advance.

Very expressive, the bearded face of San Giuseppe recalls punctually in the features the best production of Quattrocchi. The high and slightly pronounced cheekbones, the straight nose and well-defined arches, connote in fact also the faces of other statues of the artist, such as, for example, that of Saint Philip Apostle of the church of SS. Salvatore di Gangi, performed in 1813. The simulacrum of the Divine Infant is also similar to the other similar work by the sculptor Gangitano. Depicted with plump face and wavy hair wearing a soft tunic whose folds appear identical, like the rolled sleeves that leave partially uncovered both arms, in the statues of the mother church of Polizzi Generosa and in that of San Paolo a Gangi. Anomalous is the cloak, resting on the shoulders without being restrained in any way, also present in the work gangitana where it is fixed by a narrow band that crosses the torso.

Undoubtedly later, about fifty years, than the proposed dating, the work does not find, however, terms of comparison with the production documented or attributed to the Pampillonia, expression of a different plastic and figurative language, Closely anchored to baroque cultural models. The above mentioned information about the simulacrum is therefore unreliable, and no documentary evidence concerning it is available at this stage. As considered by Salvatore Farinella, instead, the statuary group can be attributed to the sculptor Gangitano Filippo Quattrocchi, figure of some interest in the artistic scene eighteenth century Sicily, a member of a family of sculptors, painters, carvers and religious, to which are to report to Milazzo two other works, a Santo Stefano protomartire, preserved in the cathedral, and a San Vincenzo Ferreri, placed in the church of Nostra Signora del Rosario, the first documented and delivered in 1786, the second attributed.

Common to several other statues carved by Quattrocchi is, instead, the position of the right foot, set back from the left to accentuate the sense of movement of the figure and emphasize its dynamism. Great care is given to the rendering of details, from the cut moving of the strands of hair, single-pointed sandals of real leather, the accentuated realistic modeling of hands and feet, in which, with extreme attention, veins are highlighted and the nail grooves incised. The clothes, adorned with isolated, rather stereotypical plant-like motifs, are characterized by a measured decorativism, which do not find particular comparisons with the fabrics coevi and that would seem to have been partly modified during a restoration occurred in the middle of the eighties of the last century.

Buda V., Lanuzza S. (a cura di), Tesori di Milazzo. Arte sacra tra Seicento e Settecento., Milazzo 2015