This 20 inch Gabriel the Shepherd
is part of the Fontanini Masterpiece Collection. Figure made of a marble based resin. A wonderful addition to your church or institution indoor or outdoor Christmas decoration. Gabriel stands holding a lamb around his neck in orange pants and a forest green woolen vest. He has a venetian red hooded cape over his head and a red satchel draped over his shoulders. He wears sepia colored shoes and holds a staff in his right hand. He also has a lamb to the right of his leg.
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Gabriel:
Gabriel, like many young boys, hadn’t had a great deal of patience for sheep tending. He loved more than anything else to daydream about traveling to distant shores, meeting all sorts of different people and eating foods he had never tasted.
Sometimes, when his mother had packed up his leather bag with raisins, bread, cheese, olives and a pouch of water, Gabriel would take his lunch out and pretend the food was an exotic array of meats. After all, meat was very precious and usually only served at very special events such as celebrations and feast days.
And once Gabriel started to daydream, he was transported to a place faraway…and not even the sheep he was supposed to be watching were in his thoughts. He dreamed about all the wonderful lands his uncles had described late at night when the candle light made shadows dance against the walls of Gabriel’s parents’ home. The boy was truly a dreamer.
On a particularly sunny day, out of the house he went and down to the nearby meadow. It was time to walk the flock to a different grassland to feed. Gabriel skipped over the rocks as the land sloped gently toward a familiar valley. He pretended to be a bird, leaping from rock to rock and lifting his arms to the sky.
Suddenly he heard a thud from behind and turned to find a small lamb wedged in between two of the rocks. Apparently the little creature had decided to follow Gabriel’s footsteps over the rocks, rather than walking with the other sheep as they took the grassy route.
Gabriel shouldered the little animal. He grabbed his front and back hooves to make sure he couldn’t jump down from his shoulders and injure himself further. Then he joined the flock for the rest of the journey into the valley.
Once a camp site was selected, Gabriel set about preparing the area for the night. Not once did he complain about the lamb’s weight as he chose a spot at the top of a small slope to rest for the evening. He could watch over the small herd from this grassy incline. He set his charge down on the ground and checked his legs. The lamb seemed dazed but he didn’t cry out in pain. He stood tentatively and then surely. And suddenly as he had fallen, off he went to join the flock with a turn of the head that taught Gabriel, even at so young an age, that we never know who might be following in our footsteps.
