Gothic Virgin and Child. France late 14th century.

Devotional statue depicting the Virgin standing, wearing a veil falling over the shoulders and a crown with fleurons. She holds the Christ Child on her left arm. Christ, bare-chested, holds a pomegranate in his hands and wears a red drapery covering the lower body. In her right hand the Virgin holds a fleur-de-lys. With her oval face, almond-shaped eyes and small mouth, the Virgin seems to engage in a dialogue with the Child. The blue mantle, cast forward like an apron, forms broken folds and thick hems, arranged in chevrons and vertical falls; the underdress appears at the neckline and at the hem.

By its domestic format, polished limestone, the crown type and the blue/red combination with gilded highlights, the work is close to devotional Virgins of the late 14th or early 15th century preserved in the former territories of eastern France. Our sculpture shows traces of restoration; the crown is visibly remade, and there are repaints of the polychromy. Losses to the noses of the Virgin and of Christ.
References consulted:
· Paul Williamson, Gothic Sculpture 1140–1300, London, Victoria & Albert Museum, 1995.
· Julien Chapuis (ed.), Gothic Sculpture in Berlin, 1300–1550, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Gebr. Mann Verlag, 2006.
· Jacques Baudoin, La sculpture flamboyante en Champagne, Lorraine et Franche-Comté, Metz, Éditions Serpenoise, 1990.