Enthroned Virgin

Unlike the Auvergne Virgin and Child, this work is not three-dimensional. Hollowed at the back, it was probably the centerpiece, with the now-missing Child, for a tabernacle or altarpiece. Also missing are the tall sides of the throne, the only remnant of which is the arcaded footstool. Comparison by Charles T. Little (1987) with a closely related group, the Virgin of Viklan, in Gotland, Sweden, has led to an attribution to this northern area.

The theme of the Virgin holding the Christ Child on her lap (Sedes Sapientiae) is the same as that of the Auvergne Virgin, but here the Virgin, as the Queen of Heaven, wears a crown. The multiple ellipses of the drapery folds are softly composed and part of a gentler expression. A subtle echo of these curves is found in the smooth planes of the face. The broad expanse of the torso would have been interrupted by the centrally placed and separately carved Christ Child, held in place by dowels.

(The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin Spring 2005)

Georges Hoentschel (French); J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (until 1913)

Breck, Joseph, and Meyric R. Rogers. The Pierpont Morgan Wing: A Handbook. 1st ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1925. p. 30, 62, fig. 31, ill. p. 57.

Breck, Joseph, and Meyric R. Rogers. The Pierpont Morgan Wing: A Handbook. 2nd ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1929. p. 30, 62, fig. 31, ill. p. 57.

Wixom, William D. "Romanesque Sculpture in American Collections. XVIII. The Cleveland Museum of Art." Gesta 18, no. 2 (1979). p. 38.

Little, Charles T. "Romanesque Sculpture in North American Collections. XXVI. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Part VI: Auvergne, Burgundy, Central France, Meuse Valley, Germany." Gesta 26, no. 2 (1987). no. 14, pp. 165–66, fig. 16.

Auchincloss, Louis. J.P. Morgan: The Financier as Collector. New York: H. N. Abrams, 1990. ill. p. 35.

Wixom, William D. "Medieval Sculpture at the Metropolitan: 800 to 1400." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 62, no. 4 (2005). p. 13.

Maxwell, Robert A. "Le goût pour la sculpture romane de Parthenay: Les collectionneurs américains et la redécouverte de l'art du XIIe siècle." In L'âge roman: Arts et culture en Poitou et dans les pays charentais, Xe-XIIe, edited by Pascale Brudy, and Anne Benéteau Péan. Montreuil: Gourcuff Gradenigo, 2011. p. 272, fig. 3.

Maxwell, Robert A. "Accounting for Taste: American Collectors and Twelfth-Century French Sculpture." Journal of the History of Collections 27, no. 3 (November 2015). p. 396, fig. 6.