Standing Virgin and Child
Attributed to Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leiden North Netherlandish (active in Strasbourg, 1460-died in Vienna, 1473?)
Vienna, ca. 1470
Boxwood
Purchase, The Cloisters Collection and Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1996 (1996.14)

Nicolaus Gerhaert was the first and most influential sculptor working in the third quarter of the fifteenth century-- a pivotal period in the development of late Gothic sculpture in Northern Europe.

This remarkable sculpture was probably created toward the end of Gerhaert's life, when he was working in Vienna. It has an extraordinary sense of elegant drama and lyricism. Fine-grained boxwood was traditionally used for such small devotional works.