MOSAN, MID-14TH CENTURY | VIRGIN AND CHILD ENTHRONED

Private collection, Belgium

This beautiful group of the Virgin and Child is a rare survival of wood sculpture from the Meuse valley. Though it can be dated well into the middle of the 14th century, it conforms somewhat archaically to the 'Sedes Sapientiae' type, which originated in the 12th century. In both style and composition it relates to similar groups from the neighbouring Lower Rhine area, at whose centre is a walnut Virgin and Child in Cologne (Bergmann, op. cit., no. 62). The Virgin's hair and features, as well as the Child's round cheeks, however, find more convincing parallels in sculpture surrounding the Master of the Mosan Marble Madonnas, who was active in Liège (see Legner, op. cit.).

RELATED LITERATURE

A. Legner (ed.), Rhein und Maas: Kunst und Kultur 800-1400, exh. cat. Cologne and Brussels, Cologne, 1972, vol. 1, pp. 377-381 nos. O5 and O9; U. Bergmann (ed.), Die Holzskulpturen des Mittelalters (1000-1400), cat. Schnütgen Museum, Cologne, 1989, p. 43, figs. 42 and 43 and pp. 263-264, no. 62