Christ of the Resurrection

By the greatest sculptor of Luso-Brazilian baroque of his day. Frei Domingos da Conceição da Silva was born in Portugal around 1643, professed as a Benedictine monk and spent most of his life in Rio de Janeiro, where he carved the sculpture and furnishings of the Monastery of São Bento — among them the Our Lady of Montserrat of the high altar.

He was a monk and he was a sculptor, and each fact explains the other: he worked without the haste of a commercial commission and without the obligation to please a patron. Hence the severity of these figures, far removed from the decorative manner that would dominate the carving of the following generation.