Northern French, probably Île-de-France, 14th century | Virgin and Child

Private family collection, Switzerland, since the 1960’s;

This beautiful French Gothic Virgin compares with sculptures heralding from Île-de-France around the second quarter of the 14th century. It is distinguished by its large size, completeness and complexity of composition, with deep arcs of drapery and decorative detail. The Virgin is presented standing, holding the Infant Christ in her right arm, who in turn cradles a dove. The Virgin wears a heavily draped mantle lined with an elaborate patterned border (which may once have been inset with stones or pastes). The Virgin's mantle flows in a serpentine arc across her upper body, and is held together at the chest by a deep U-shaped cord with large terminals. Her crown is set with fictive stones and adorned with palmette type finials, whilst her headdress is characterised by swallowtail folds, and she holds a lily in her left hand. Compositionally the group finds a parallel in the large Île-de-France limestone Virgin and Child sold in these rooms on 8 December 1989, lot 48. Compare also with the Lorraine Virgin in the church of St Ursula in Cologne (Eisenwerth, op. cit., no. 357). The decorative border of the mantle recalls late 15th-century Bourgoyne and Troyes sculpture, but finds a precedent in the famous mid-13th-century Virgin from Strasbourg cathedral in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (inv. no. 47.101.11). The sweet facial features and softened lines are reminiscent of the famous Paris, circa 1300-1310, small-scale Virgin in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. no. 17.190.739).

RELATED LITERATURE

J. A. Schmoll gen. Eisenwerth, Die Lothringische Skulptur des 14. Jahrhunderts: Ihre Voraussetzungen in der Südchampagne und ihre ausserlothringischen Beziehungen, Petersberg, 2005, pp. 536-537, no. 357