Abstract
This article is a written statement –with some extensions– of the presentation given on Thursday, October 3, 2013 at 6:00 p.m. at the Meadows Museum in Dallas (USA). It had a total duration of two hours, including fifty minutes of questions. The title of that conference was the same as the one presented in this publication. The author was invited to make an approach to the biography and artistic production of Juan Alonso de Villabrille y Ron (Argul, around 1663 - Madrid, around 1732), an ideal context with which to approach the investigation of one of his new effigies, specifically , a prolonged bust of Saint Paul the hermit, polychrome terracotta attributed to the Asturian sculptor, one of the most important imageiners of the Spanish Baroque.
The publication incorporates a critical apparatus at the bottom of the page, as well as a specific bibliography, in order to provide the text with scientific endorsement. Finally, this research work brings up to date the list of sculptural works signed by Villabrille, executing for the first time a palaeographic and comparative analysis between all of them. From there, an exhaustive formal study of the North American cultural asset is carried out, including comparisons with other pieces of Spanish Baroque sculpture, as well as with other effigies of the same artist, which absolutely confirm his affiliation to the sculptor's catalog settling in the Villa and Madrid court. It is, in short, the first monographic article dedicated to such an important piece, another of Villabrille and Ron's masterpieces.