Cleric with Book (possibly St Lawrence)

Two Clerics (kneeling and standing, both beautifully carved), were once joined to a Virgin and Child now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Distinctive is their angular, energized drapery, sometimes described as “cartaceous” for its resemblance to crumpled paper. They may have originally been carved for the Arc of the Persian Martyrs, a sculptural complex in the church of San Lorenzo in Cremona made to house relics (parts of saint’s bodies or objects with which they had contact).