Few representations in ivory of the Virgin and Child can match this example, noble in conception and sensitive in execution, produced in medieval Paris, the principal center of ivory carving during the Gothic era. The exquisite face of the youthful Virgin generates a tender aura. (The head of the Christ child is a more recent replacement.) The finesse and control of the carving, the soft treatment of the forms, and the maternal presentation of the Virgin can be related to the ivory Virgin of Groeningen (now in the Church of Saint Michael in Courtrai [Kartrijk], Belgium), a work possibly from about 1285 by the same carver. Both works pay indirect homage to the earlier exquisite Virgin and Child from the treasury of Saint Denis now in the Taft Museum, Cincinnati. The interrelationship of these three ivory carvings is especially evident in the sensitive handling of the composition and similar attention to detail, such as the cord of the mantle and the necklace with a medallion. Here the focus of the work is on the human and loving mother rather than the Queen of Heaven. The statuette was probably set into a small architectural tabernacle, and functioned as a devotional object for lay owners, probably women, or for nuns in a convent.