Description

This bust of Saint Dorothy represents her as a beautiful young woman, with long blonde hair in ringlets. She wears a pinkish tunic decorated in the estofada style with floral motifs and a headcloth covering her head. Cut across her forehead and neck are two bleeding wounds, in reference to her martyrdom; she was beheaded during the time of the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In this piece there is no sign of her most typical iconographic feature, a basket of flowers and apples. In the middle of her chest is an oval-shaped hole, framed in gold – the reliquary itself, which would have contained a relic of this saint.

Judging by the predominant features of its style (elongated figure, lack of expression, the drape of the clothing, and the treatment of her curly hair) and the type of moulding used, this reliquary can be considered representative of Sevillian mannerism, from the last quarter of the 16th C.