Austrian, Villach, circa 1515

Private collection, Austria;
with Sascha Mehringer, Munich, Germany, by 2001

Friesach, Museum Moderner Kunst Kärnten, Schauplatz Mittelalter Friesach: Kärntner Landesausstellung, 2001, no. 03.14

F. Kieslinger (ed.), Mittelalterliche Religiöse Plastik aus Österreich, exh. cat. Hagenbund, Vienna 1933, p. 9 and pl. XIII;
G. Müller-Gutenbrunn, Die Kärntner Schnitzplastik am Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts, Diss. Vienna, 1943, p. 56;
O. Demus, 'Die spätgotischen Altäre Kärntens', Forschung und Kunst 25, Klagenfurt, 1991, pp. 252-254 and fig. 285

Overall the condition of the wood is very good with minor dirt and wear to the surface consistent with age. There are multiple old paint layers to the surface and it is possible that some polychromy may be refreshed. There is general wear and stable craquelure to the polychromy and to the gilding, revealing the red ground beneath the gilding in areas. There are thicker paint layers around Christ's neck, where there are also losses (the head does not, however, appear to have been detached at all). There are some losses to the polychromy, including to in the folds of drapery. Some wear to the noses. There are losses to the upper lip of the Sun and a small loss to the proper left side and two original holes in the face. One of the right rays of the sun is slightly bent and there is a loss to the tip of another further up. Some rays are a little loose. There is a slight fissure to the Virgin's proper right side and some further minor fissures, including to the Virgin's drapery at the bottom at the back where there is a metal pin. Paint has flaked to the drapery of the young boy at the back revealing a canvas underlayer. There are further minor fissures and wear to the proper left side of the boy and a possible loss to the hair. The boy is carved separately and a stable slightly open joint is visible. There is a small hole to the right side of the Virgin's neck. There are four small holes to the underside and an attached piece of wood for stability. In the 1930's the Virgin was photographed with a crown which is no longer present (and may or may not have been original). There is a small chip to the back of the Virgin's head and a small hole to the top of Her head.
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This petite statuette of the Virgin and Child defies its dimensions by creating an exuberant sense of monumentality. Holding aloft the blessing Christ Child, the Virgin smiles sweetly while balancing on the back of a crescent moon among clouds. Her exaggerated contrapposto stance is enhanced by massive folds of drapery which sway outwards at her sides and overlap in narrow swirls at her feet. The sculptor thus creates an illusionistic effect of flotation, which lends a virtuoso elegance to the composition. Serving as supports for the delicate foot of the voluminous group, the swirling clouds mirror the forms of the Virgin's drapery, while the diminutive Angel, in a charming gesture, quite literally holds the Virgin upright by placing His right hand on the back of Her legs.

Carved in the round, the statuette is remarkable not only for its compositional ambition but for the striking image that appears on its reverse. Attached to the Virgin's back is a beautifully carved portrait-like face of the sun, with rays that accentuate the serenity of the scene. The iconography is based on the Woman of the Apocalypse, who was identified with the Mother of God in the Middle Ages. 

The group is a rare survival of late Gothic small-scale sculpture from the Austrian state of Carinthia (Kärnten). First shown in an exhibition of medieval Austrian sculpture in 1933, the statuette was described there as 'among the best and most intimate works of a representative Carinthian carver of around 1510' (Kieslinger, op. cit.). Later scholarship has established an origin in the Villach-based workshop of the master whose figures adorn the Altar now in the Deutschordenskirche in Friesach. In fact, the present group appears to be a clever adaptation of the Virgin and Child at the centre of the Friesach Altar. While it retains the large statue's grandeur, the statuette adds interest through the addition of the Sun and Angel, and its sense of levitation. Its survival and extraordinary state of preservation testify to the precious status it must have enjoyed across the centuries.