Saint Damasus
Author: Unknown
Date: 16th century, end
Material: Oil on chestnut
Dimensions (cm): H 106,6 x W 49,5
Provenance: Unknown
Inventory No.: MAS P 5
Saint Damasus, patron saint of Guimarães, wears a quite ornamented dalmatic. Symbolizing his condition of pope, he wears the triple tiara and holds the triple cross, with a very long stem.
Damasus was one of the most remarkable popes from the 4th century, standing up for the Church of Rome against any eventual schism.
This painting and another one depicting Saint Torcato (MAS P 4), also on display in the Painting and Sculpture Room, represent two of the most well-known saints of the Guimarães hagiology and they might belong to one of the altarpieces of the cloister of the Colegiada de Nossa Senhora da Oliveira.
Works by the same painter, according to Vítor Serrão, they may result from the hand of an anonymous Guimarães master stylistically influenced by the Guimarães painter, Pedro de França, who was active in the previous generation and was a salaried painter of the Collegiate Church in the third quarter of the 16th century. In this anonymous master, the Gothicizing archaisms disappear and the hand develops with another kind of plastic reinvigoration and seduction, following a visible influence of the Dutch Mannerist canons.