João Afonso, to whom this forceful portrayal of Saint Michael trouncing the devil can be confidently attributed, occupies a significant place within this artistic genealogy, having flourished at a moment of transition between the legacy of the international gothic practiced at the great works of Batalha and the dawn of the more national manueline style. Documented at the head of a busy workshop in Coimbra between 1433 and 1469, his name is known from an inscription in one of his early surviving works, the tomb of Fernão Gomes de Góis in the parish church of Oliveira do Conde, where he styles himself “João Afonso, Mestre dos Sinos”; he had previously worked at the Batalha complex, where he likely trained under Gil Eanes. Tombs, retables and stand-alone figures such as this one form the bulk of Afonso’s extant production, which includes some 20 known works. A tabernacle retable now in the MNMC, inscribed with the year 1433, is his earliest securely-dated surviving commission.
João Afonso (doc. 1433-1469)
Saint Michael trouncing the Devil
Central Portugal, Coimbra, c. 1450
A vibrant artistic culture, fostered by royal and ecclesiastical patronage, combined with the exceptional quality of the regional Ançã limestone and an influx of foreign masters, contributed to make Coimbra into an important centre for the production of high-quality sculpture in the later Middle Ages. Master Pêro, traditionally believed to have arrived in the city as part of the entourage of queen Isabella of Aragon, was its first great sculptor whose name is known to historians, having worked in the first half of the 14th century. Local masters and their workshops would carry this tradition well into the Renaissance, when it came to be enriched by the contributions of other artists trained abroad like Jean de Rouen and Nicolas de Chantereine.
Clearly very dear to the Portuguese piety of this period, Saint Michael is by far the most recurrent iconographic subject within Afonso’s œuvre, with six surviving examples preserved in public collections — three in Coimbra’s Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro and three in Lisbon’s Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga — to which can be added a small relief-carved figure on the Gomes de Góis tomb. All combine the archangel’s traditional role as weigher of souls with his biblical portrayal as leader of the heavenly host and vanquisher of the devil. The many iconographic, compositional and decorative smiliarities between these extant examples hint at a measure of serialisation, reflecting what must have been a high demand for this figure type among his clientele. The proliferation of lay brotherhoods dedicated to prayer for the souls in Purgatory, typically placed under the patronage of the Archangel Michael and often endowed with their own side-altars in parish and other churches, probably helps to explain the saint’s particular appeal during this period. Nonetheless, it is also interesting that both the cross staff and the motif of the cross on our figure’s shield take the form found on the insignia of the militray Order of Aviz, or Ordem Militar de Aviz, one of four ancient Portuguese orders of chivalry which was founded in 1146 to defend the kingdom from the Moors and foster the Christian Reconquest. In the years around 1400, the Order's Master, John became King John I of Portugal (reigned 1385–1433), beginning the House of Aviz. It is likely that our figure was commissioned by a patron keen to demonstrate loyalty to the ruling dynasty or who was themselves a member of the Order.
Another figure of Saint Michael, attributable to Afonso’s workshop and now preserved in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antigain Lisbon (Inv. 2002 Esc), offers an important point of comparison to our version, showing what is essentially the same composition and a very similar characterisation of the figure though with an inferior level of refinement and finish. The more schematic carving of the feathers, for instance, separates the Lisbon figure from our far more accomplished treatment of the same details on our version. The Lisbon Saint Michael is also more sturdily built and lacks the elegant S-shaped stance that characterises our figure. A closer comparison is afforded by a second archangel, long associated with Afonso’s hand, now at the MNAA (Inv. 1194 Esc), which remains one of his most celebrated works, or by another at Coimbra’s MNMC (Inv. 643 / E37). Both representations dispense with Michael’s shield, but their pronouncedly vertical figures and delicate treatment of the saint’s facial features are more in keeping with the general construction of our sculpture. In all three cases, the delicate finish of the archangel’s wings, with their pattern of precise incisions, is representative of Afonso’s meticulous approach and taste for decorative stylisation, seen also on some details of his treatment of jewelry and fabric.
While nothing is known of its original context, the two close comparanda in Portuguese collections that can be connected to specific sites were both produced for churches in central Coimbra — MNMC Inv. 643 / E 37 for the church of São Salvador and MNMC 4018 / E36 for the city’s Old Cathedral. It is probable that the present piece was likewise carved for a site within the city walls or in its environs, and displaced in the wake of the Portuguese dissolution of monasteries in 1834, or possibly during the campaigns of urban renewal that saw the demolition or secularisation of several of Coimbra’s historic churches in the latter half of the 19th century. From large religious houses like the famous monastery of Santa Cruz, of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, to smaller churches and chapels, many were the religious buildings whose contents entered the art market during this period. This circumstance gave rise to remarkable public collections like those of the Instituto de Coimbra and of the Machado de Castro National Museum, but led also to the formation of important private collections — like the one assembled by the Count of Ameal at his palace in downtown Coimbra, known to have included a great number of pieces from the golden age of regional sculpture.
Widely acknowledged as the leading Portuguese sculptor of his generation, João Afonso has long been regarded by art historians as having ushered in a new phase of Portuguese gothic sculpture, the so-called ‘second gothic’ of Coimbra — which in turn opened the way to the first expressions of a Renaissance taste in the Manueline period. His output would be widely imitated in the central region of the country, namely by provincial workshops, but generally “much less gracefully, and with less felicitous proportions”. The Archangel Michael, a theme central to Afonso’s œuvre, is treated with exceptional verve on the present figure — perhaps the most finely worked and certainly the most well preserved of the whole group to have survived — showcasing the combination of stylised formality and humanness that characterise his best works.
