Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

An angel draws back a gilded arrow as Saint Teresa of Ávila swoons on a marble cloud, her habit breaking into cascading folds while bronze rays and light from a hidden window pour down from above. Bernini carved the group between 1647 and 1652 for the Cornaro Chapel of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, with marble portraits of the Cornaro family watching from theater boxes at the sides. Staging the saint's own written account of divine rapture as total theater, it is the defining work of Roman Baroque sculpture.