A FULLY restored statue of Scotland’s patron saint is today standing guard in the city bearing his name – after getting a hand with its missing digits.
The larger-than-life-size tribute to St Andrew is in one piece for the first time in years thanks to the work of a team at the Fife university that bears the holy man’s name.
Donated to St Andrews University in the 1960s, its left hand “disappeared” some time after it was placed in the shrubbery of the local Botanic Garden car park.
A 2018 public appeal to reunite the figure with his fingers proved unsuccessful and a replacement has now been crafted.
The two-handed artwork can now be seen at the entrance to Wardlaw Museum, the main museum of the University of St Andrews, which itself is currently undergoing a major facelift.
The restoration project led to new discoveries about the piece, which is a copy of a sculpture in St Peter’s Basilica, Rome.
Until experts began their research, the Fife model had been attributed to the wrong artist.
They determined that it is actually the work of Aberdeen-born sculptor Sir John Steell, who was made Sculptor in Ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1838.
Working with his father from studios in Edinburgh, Steell made his first major piece in 1827 when the North British Insurance Company commissioned a huge timber statue of St Andrew for the exterior of their office in the capital’s New Town.
That sculpture was based on a sketch of the St Andrew in Rome by Flemish Baroque artist François Duquesnoy.
And, because the insurance office was immediately opposite that of the Royal Scottish Academy, Steell’s version attracted the attentions and praise of the city’s artistic elite.
The success helped drive Steell, whose works stand around the world, to travel to Italy and study such statuary first-hand.
When he came back, the stone St Andrew was the result.
Before being given to the university, it spent years in the entrance hall of an Edinburgh financial firm, where touching its fingers was thought to bring luck to passers-by.
Dr Katie Stevenson, vice-principal of collections, music and digital content at St Andrews University, led the restoration project. She said: “The restoration and conservation of such a historically important sculpture will allow generations to enjoy it for years to come.
“We were delighted that during the restoration our team were able to confirm the added discovery that the statue of St Andrew is an original piece by Sir John Steell, which makes it even more significant not only to the university but to our understanding of the development of Scottish art in the nineteenth century.
“Before it came to the university in the 1960s, St Andrew sat in the foyer of the North British & Mercantile Insurance Company building in Edinburgh and as members of staff came in to work, they touched his fingers to bring them luck.”
Steell, who rose to international prominence, also created many other prominent statues in Edinburgh, including the Duke of Wellington and the statue of Sir Walter Scott at the Scott Monument.
Many of his works were sent abroad to locations including Jamaica, India and the United States, where his statue of Scotland’s national bard Robert Burns sits in New York’s Central Park.
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