Sacred Art & Iconography
St James the Less (Victoria and Albert Museum, A.153-1922)
Alabaster panel, England, 1440 to 1460, part of a Zamora apostle set, Victoria and Albert Museum A.153-1922
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A carved, painted and gilt alabaster panel, England, 1440 to 1460, part of a twelve panel apostle set originally from Zamora, Spain, showing a haloed saint holding a fuller's club, titled by the museum St James the Less. Held today by the Victoria and Albert Museum under museum number A.153-1922, given by Art Fund.
Facts
Subject Matter
Depicted SubjectThe set functioned as a teaching device pairing the Apostles' Creed with the apostles credited, in a widespread medieval legend, with composing it: each figure originally carried a scroll inscribed with one clause. Two of this set's scrolls survive legibly enough to confirm the scheme directly, Jude's reading "Carnis resurrectionem" (the resurrection of the body) and Simon's "Remissione peccator[um]" (the forgiveness of sins), the tenth and ninth articles of the Creed respectively. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Depicts
"James the Less" is the New Testament's own distinguishing title for this apostle (Mark 15:40), and standard art-historical convention identifies it directly with James, son of Alphaeus, the same identification named in the corroborating Wikipedia sentence already cited on this panel8: "the Catholic tradition holds that this James is to be identified with James, son of Alphaeus, and James the Less." The further identification with James the Just is the separate, weaker layer that predecessor file correctly wrote at stance associated on its own edge.
James the Just, Figures The museum's own title reads St James the Less, not James the Just; the identification with James the Just rests on the traditional Catholic reading the corroborating Wikipedia record attributes to Jerome, supported by the fuller's club the panel's figure holds, that record's own named martyrdom attribute for James the Just, though modern scholarship treats the identification as disputed.
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