( fl mid-12th century). French sculptor. He is known from two inscriptions recorded before their accidental destruction in 1864: GILABERTUS ME FECIT and VIR NON INCERTUS ME CELAVIT GILABERTUS (‘Gilabertus, no ordinary man, made me’). They were located at the base of figures representing SS Thomas and Andrew, each carved in high relief on one corner of square-sectioned limestone uprights. These sculptures were salvaged with six other reliefs representing the other ten Apostles from the cloister of St Etienne, Toulouse (see TOULOUSE, §2(iii)), destroyed after 1812. Originally assembled in the municipal museum (now the Musée des Augustins) as if they formed the splayed jambs of a portal, the sculptures have been variously dated between 1125 and 1160 on the basis of comparison with sculpture elsewhere in Europe. The finely modelled heads and attenuated bodies, which are defined by delicately chiselled drapery falling in sheer folds, have caused the reliefs signed by Gilabertus in particular to be seen as precursors of the style of column-statues at Saint-Denis Abbey and Chartres Cathedral. While these reliefs differ significantly from the others because of the serene posture and oblique setting of the figures, the master’s hand has also been detected in other figures of the group characterized by crossed legs. This last feature and the haloes with rosettes have also suggested that Gilabertus’s art inspired the work of Nicholaus, whose decoration of the west portal of Ferrara Cathedral is dated by an inscription to 1135. The original location of these reliefs on a chapter house portal is questionable, however; they are better suited to the corners and walls of an interior space such as the sacellum mentioned when they were first described in the 19th century. Furthermore, the exceptional style of the Gilabertus reliefs, although related in some ways to regional art, at Moissac for example, has also been explained as inspired by the art of the Ile-de-France rather than anticipating it.

• Gilabertus
  • Romanesque, §III, 1(ii)(g): Stone sculpture: Languedoc
  • Romanesque, §III, 1(iii)(c): Stone sculpture: Catalonia
  • works
    • Romanesque, §III, 1(i): Stone sculpture: Introduction
    • Toulouse, §2(iii): St Etienne