Gilded Figures: Wood and Clay Made Flesh

Pedro de Mena, Saint Acisclus, ca. 1680, polychromed and gilded wood, Hispanic Society of New York.

Exhibitions of polychrome sculpture are few and far between so Gilded Figures: Wood and Clay Made Flesh at the Hispanic Society in New York, is a cause for celebration. It features works including one of Pedro de Mena’s extraordinarily life-like busts, works in terracotta by Luisa Roldán and Caspicara’s Four Fates of Man. Building on the legacy which Archer M. Huntington left the museum, the institution today owns the finest collection of these works outside Spain.