New Holy Week statues for Ragusa and Zejtun

The skill and craftsmanship of Maltese artists has been recognised overseas on many occasions.

A case in point is the making of two Holy Week statues by Aaron Camilleri Cauchi commissioned by Mgr Don Pietro Floridia for the Duomo di San Giorgio, in Ragusa, Sicily.

The irony of this commission is that the statues were made of papier mache, a craft imported from Sicily around the 1700s, Mr Camilleri Cauchi said.

One of the statues shows Our Lady of Sorrows and the other, the Risen Christ. One was used for yesterday's procession and the other for tomorrow's Easter celebration.

The statues are about 1.8 metres tall and took Mr Camilleri Cauchi, 28, about three months to make.

Aaron's father, Alfred - who has been practising this art for the past 50 years and is considered by many aficionados of Holy Week statues as the master craftsman of this genre - has, on his part, made a new statue for the parish of Zejtun showing Simon of Cyrene assisting Christ during his dire moments while carrying the cross on the way to Golgotha.

Apart from Christ and Simon, the statue features Simon's sons Alexander and Rufus and a Roman centurion.

The statue was commissioned by the archpriest of Zejtun, Fr Eric Overend, and the Good Friday Festivities committee.

Like all statues, paintings and other works of art in churches, this statue had to get the green light from the Curia.

The statue, measuring 1.8m x 1.5m x 1.2m, replaces a statue showing the same episode that was made in Lecce in 1962 and was irreparably damaged, Alfred Camilleri Cauchi said.

The new statue, however, has a completely different composition, highlighting the artist's meticulous attention to detail and his refined sense of drama.