Saint Anthony

Colourful critique and love of one's neighbour in carved cork

For us Portuguese, he belongs to Lisbon. For so many others, to Padua.

He was born in Lisbon as Fernando de Bulhões at the end of the 12th century. He became a friar, a traveller, a thinker. He was one of the great orators of his time. He died in Padua and was canonised just eleven months after his death.

Saint Anthony was a Franciscan. A symbol of love for one's neighbour, of help and charity. But his story also speaks of eloquence, of miracles. He is called the Matchmaker Saint. Because of the legends. Because of the concrete deeds of a man who, in life, preached and helped make love possible. Placing feeling above dowry.

Perhaps that is why he remains so close. In Lisbon, every June, he always returns. In the streets, in the songs, in impromptu gatherings. In shared affection.

Carved in cork by the hands of Porfírio Mendes, Saint Anthony is a close, human presence. And also playful, irreverent, defiant.

Porfírio Mendes has this gift: a singular reinterpretation of classic figures. With humour, expressiveness and character. In his cork, the colours are warm and deliberate, the expression is exaggerated with intent, and the sacred gains a complicity that few materials would allow.

Between the sacred and the popular, between history and creation, Porfírio Mendes's Saint Anthony is more than a sculpture: it is memory, affection and imagination.