Habakkuk and Angel. Habakkuk and the Angel is a sculpture created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini c. 1656-61.
Standing in a niche in the Chigi Chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, it shows the Prophet Habakkuk with the angel of God. It forms a part of a larger composition with the sculpture of Daniel and the Lion diagonally opposite.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini began to work in the chapel in 1652 for Fabio Chigi, the cardinal-priest of the basilica. His patron was elected pope under the name of Alexander VII in 1655 giving a fresh impetus for the reconstruction of the funerary chapel.
At the time the two niches at the sides of the main altar were still empty while the other two on the left and right of the entrance were filled with the statues of Lorenzetto created after Raphael's design: Jonah and the Whale and Elijah. A surviving drawing from the workshop of Bernini proves that the architect at first planned to move the two Raphaelesque statues to the empty niches by the altar but soon he changed his mind.
He created two new statues depicting the Prophet Daniel and Habakkuk, and these sculptures formed a larger composition facing each other diagonally across the space of the chapel. Bernini created a spatial relationship that enlivened the entire chapel, turning its classical form to a new religious use. The statue of Habakkuk was placed in the niche to right of the main altar. The sculptu
Standing in a niche in the Chigi Chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome, it shows the Prophet Habakkuk with the angel of God. It forms a part of a larger composition with the sculpture of Daniel and the Lion diagonally opposite.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini began to work in the chapel in 1652 for Fabio Chigi, the cardinal-priest of the basilica. His patron was elected pope under the name of Alexander VII in 1655 giving a fresh impetus for the reconstruction of the funerary chapel.
At the time the two niches at the sides of the main altar were still empty while the other two on the left and right of the entrance were filled with the statues of Lorenzetto created after Raphael's design: Jonah and the Whale and Elijah. A surviving drawing from the workshop of Bernini proves that the architect at first planned to move the two Raphaelesque statues to the empty niches by the altar but soon he changed his mind.
He created two new statues depicting the Prophet Daniel and Habakkuk, and these sculptures formed a larger composition facing each other diagonally across the space of the chapel. Bernini created a spatial relationship that enlivened the entire chapel, turning its classical form to a new religious use. The statue of Habakkuk was placed in the niche to right of the main altar. The sculptu
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