Mark Wallace

"The Veiled Christ" is a marble sculpture so lifelike that the artist who produced it was accused of alchemy. Sculpted by Giuseppe Sanmartino in 1753, the delicate, translucent veil over the body of Christ is so remarkable that it's hard to believe human hands could have shaped it from stone. At the time of its completion, there were popular claims that it must have been created by draping a veil over the figure and using alchemy to turn it to stone. Alongside his contemporary Antonio Corradini, Sanmartino was one of the few artists to ever sculpt such intricate folds, rivalling the earlier Renaissance and Baroque masters like Michelangelo and Bernini. The layered effect of the marble is so precise that every feature of Christ, from his eyelids to his earlobes, is easily discernible through the veil, which appears to sit weightlessly over his body - it is one of the most impossible feats ever achieved in sculpture. Corradini was originally commissioned for the sculpture by Raimondo di Sangro, the Prince of Sansevero. Corradini died before the work began, so Sanmartino stepped in to create what became his magnum opus. The work still lives at the Chapel of Sansevero in Naples to this day, where it is housed alongside several other miraculous creations like Corradini's famous masterpiece, "Modesty" (1752).