Description
This small panel depicts Saint James Major as both apostle and pilgrim. Wearing a yellow mantle, he holds a red book and a pilgrim’s staff with a black pennant bearing a pink scallop shell, the emblem associated with the road to Santiago de Compostela. An inscription on the gold ground names the saint.
Simone Martini painted the panel around 1315–1320 for a series of apostolic busts, probably once arranged along an altarpiece predella. Now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, it is distinguished by its subtle face, intricate gilding and exceptionally graceful contours.
The little scallop shell attached to the staff opens the image onto a world far beyond the altar. It evokes pilgrimage routes across Europe and devotion to the apostle’s shrine at Compostela.






