If you look up at this elevation today you won’t see twelve statues, but you will see two on the west front. Tom Fedorek, Senior Guide, pointed them out to me last fall and indicated their names, St. Andrew and St.Philip.
The statues begin on the east face of the north tower, proceed to the north face, then march across the west front and are supposed to wrap around the south tower and end on the east facade of the south tower. Only 5 of the Apostles were sculpted and carved.
Tom has graciously sent us the names, images and locations as well as the iconographic attributes that identify these five apostles. They are eight feet tall, 3 1/2 tons and are of Indiana limestone.
The Sculptor and The Carver
We have not found documentation verifying the five apostles’ sculptor and carver. John Angel worked on the north tower. His sculptures appear on the porch, the portal of the martyrs. He also sculpted the tympanum and the trumeau featuring St. Peter. The Ardolinos, brothers and cousins, carved his models. The Ardolinos carved most of these in situ in the 1930s. The figures of the five Apostles appear to be studio carved and then placed in the buttress niches. For now, the attribution points towards John Angel and the Ardolinos.
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- A Guide To The Cathedral Church Of Saint John The Divine In The City of New York, originally compiled by Edward Hagaman Hall, L.H.D, published by the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church, 1965, Seventeenth Edition.
- The Living Cathedral, St. John the Divine, A History and Guide, Howard E. Quirk, 1993, Crossroad, New York.
- Senior Guide, Tom Fedorek, The Cathedral of St. John the Divine.