Saint Sebastian (1620s or later): Art, History and Details

Saint Sebastian (1620s or later) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Georg Petel (German, c. 1601-c. 1634).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This composition is the subject of an ongoing attribution debate. The design is adapted from a painting by Adam Elsheimer, a German artist working Rome. This sculptural model exists in many versions; however, they vary considerably in their execution, complicating the identification, because they were clearly not made by a single sculptor or workshop. However, Georg Petel probably first created the design as he traveled across Italy in 1620–24, where his portrait was painted holding this composition.

Object facts

• Title: Saint Sebastian
• Date: 1620s or later
• Creator attribution: Georg Petel (German, c. 1601-c. 1634)
• Culture: Germany
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: bronze
• Dimensions: Overall: 53.3 x 20.3 x 16.5 cm (21 x 8 x 6 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Sculpture
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1940.585

Collection credit

Bequest of James Parmelee

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William. "The Bequest of James Parmelee." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 28, no. 2 (February 1941): 15-27.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.