BUSTE DE SAINT PAUL (?) in limestone carved in... Lot 23

BUSTE DE SAINT PAUL (?) in limestone carved in an almost rounded shape. The figure is represented in the manner of a portrait with individual features: pronounced baldness, venous network on the temples, wrinkled forehead, frowning eyebrows, sunken eyes with thick eyelids and expression wrinkles, strong and bushy nose, drooping cheeks with very marked nasolabial folds, mouth with half-open lips showing the teeth; long bifid beard with strongly wavy locks ending in a tight curl; hair with hooked locks, one of which goes down to a point in the neck; he is dressed in a wraparound coat with folds superimposed on the right shoulder. Burgundy, attributed to Claus Sluter or his workshop (1385-1406), early 15th century Height: 60 cm (missing right shoulder, scratches, fragment) Provenance: old collection, England. A true portrait, this bust of a bearded man, presumably Saint Paul, combines several characteristics that can be found under the chisel of the great Burgundian sculptor Claus Sluter. The connections with the heads of the prophets Isaiah and Moses from the Well of the Carthusian monastery of Champmol near Dijon are particularly telling (fig.a, a' and b, b'). We find on these three old men's heads the features that constitute the Sutherian style: the forehead marked by parallel wrinkles, the thick eyebrow arches, the venous network on the temples, the eyes sunken in their sockets and protruding at the same time, the heavy orbital portions, the distended skin of the cheeks. As with Moses, the sculptor has taken particular care here to achieve the decorative effect of the beard, which is divided, one like the other, into two large clusters of strongly wavy strands. Similar tightly looped endings can be seen as on the beard of another bust depicting Saint Anthony attributed to Sluter's workshop kept in the Dijon museum (inv.Arb. 1350, fig.c, c'). The accumulation of folds resting on the right shoulder of the bearded saint is also reminiscent of