A private collection · five objects
The stories of the figures on the shelf
Five devotional statues, photographed where they stand. Each one is either a moment in the Gospels, a person who came later, or an angel who was there first. Pick one and read what it actually is — the identity, the scene, the objects in its hands, and the line between what Scripture says and what legend added.
The Holy Family
Three figures, three halos, and one rosary threaded through all of them.
Saint George
A real Roman soldier executed in 303, wearing medieval armour, killing an animal invented in the eleventh century.
Saint Anthony of Padua
A Portuguese preacher who died at thirty-five, was canonised in eleven months, and now spends his afterlife finding people's keys.
Saint Michael the Archangel
Not a saint at all, strictly speaking. An angel, a sword, and a foot on the old serpent.
Archangel Raphael
The only angel in Scripture who goes by a false name, and the only one holding a fish.