A Philippino Archangel Saint Michael

This rare statuette depicting Saint Michael defeating Evil, was delicately carved in Manila, The Philippines, and is richly highlighted with elements in silver adding to its appearance and uniqueness. This and other similar statuettes were intended as visual aids for devotional practices as promoted by the Jesuits in Asia in their missionary work and as items for export, namely to Central and South America, and the Iberian Peninsula. Recent archaeological finds, namely from the shipwreck of a Manila galleon, the Santa Margarita (1601) off the Mariana islands (Ladrones), has yielded a wealth of information on the chronology and production of devotional ivories made by Chinese and Filipino master carvers in the early seventeenth-century Philippines.

Made for export and intended for a private oratory, in this Archangel Michael conquering Evil (sometimes depicted as a dragon, and others as a composite chimera), we see the figure of the archangel standing with a pair of pointed silver wings worked in repoussé and chased, trampling the figure of Evil with his feet while brandishing his sword. Based in contemporary Baroque Iberian models, the archangel's clothes are reminiscent of Ancient Roman military attire, such as the cingulum militare with its baltea or hanging straps, and like the torso, highlighted with pigment and gold over the carved surface of the ivory. It's iconography is typical of the devotional ivoires carved in the Philippines in the seventeenth century, as the portrayal of Saint Michael conquering Evil was seen as symbolic of the Christian conversion of the local Filipino population, and thus of Christianity's supremacy over all other local religious practices.