This statuette is one of the most elegant images of the Virgin and Child produced in fourteenth-century France. The fine details of the carving as well as of the original gilding make this a most precious document of sculptural style associated with contemporary court patronage. This work may have been the gift of Jeanne d'Evreux (d. 1371), queen of France, to the Cistercian convent of Pont-aux-Dames, located near one of the royal chateaux.
The original gilt metal crown is now lost, which explains the smooth rounded surface at the top of the virgin’s head. The eucharistic pyx, held in the Virgin’s right hand and blessed by the Christ Child, prefigures the Passion.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Virgin and Child
Date:ca. 1340
Geography:Made in Ile-de-France
Culture:French
Medium:Marble, gilding
Dimensions:Overall (with base): 32 x 9 1/2 x 6 5/16 in. (81.3 x 24.1 x 16 cm) without base: 30 3/8 x 9 3/8 x 5 5/16 in. (77.2 x 23.8 x 13.5 cm) Base: 1 5/8 x 9 1/2 x 6 5/16 in. (4.1 x 24.1 x 16 cm)
Classification:Sculpture-Stone
Credit Line:Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
Object Number:17.190.721
From the Cistercian Abbey of Pont-aux-Dames (Seine & Marne); probably at the Church Saint-Georges, Couilly-Pont-aux-Dames (before 1899) (?); Charles Stein, Paris; [his posthumous sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris (June 8–10, 1899, no. 59, to Fitzhenry)]; possibly J. H. Fitzhenry, London (from 1899); Edouard Jonas, Paris (sold 1906); J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (until 1917)
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. "The Pierpont Morgan Treasures. Loan exhibition in honor of the Junius Spencer Morgan Memorial," November 10, 1960–December 18, 1960.
National Gallery of Canada. "Art and the Courts: France and England from 1259 to 1328," April 28–July 2, 1972.
Pavillon de Marsan, Palais du Louvre. "Les Fastes du Gothique: Le Siècle de Charles V," October 1981–January 1982.
Catalogue des objets d'art et de haute curiosité ... composant la collection de feu M. Charles Stein. Paris: Galerie Georges Petit, June 8–10, 1899. no. 59, p. 17.
Lefrançois-Pillion, Louise. "Les statues de la Vierge et l'Enfant au XIVe siècle." Gazette de Beaux-Arts 14 (July-August 1935). p. 142, fig. 5.
Squilbeck, Jean. "La Vierge à l'Encrier ou a l'Enfant ecrivant." Revue Belge d'Archéologie et d'Histoire de l'Art 19 (1950). p. 134.
Forsyth, William Holmes. "A Group of Fourteenth-Century Mosan Sculptures." Metropolitan Museum Journal 1 (1968). p. 43, n. 5.
Schmidt, Gerhard. "Drei pariser Marmorbildhauer des 14. Jahrhunderts." Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 24, no. 1 (1971). p. 168, n. 37.
Verdier, Philippe, Peter Brieger, and Marie Farquhar Montpetit, ed. Art and the Courts: France and England from 1259-1328. Vol. 2. Ottowa: National Gallery of Canada, 1972. no. 64, pp. 112–13, pl. 86.
Verdier, Philippe, Peter Brieger, and Marie Farquhar Montpetit, ed. Art and the Courts: France and England from 1259-1328. Vol. 1. Ottowa: National Gallery of Canada, 1972. no. 64, pp. 147–49.
Deciry, Jean. "La statue de la Vierge à l'Enfant de l'église de Couilly: Une vraie ou une fausse énigme." Bulletin de la Société Littéraire et Historique de la Brie 36 (1981). pp. 91–100, fig. 1.
Baron, Françoise, ed. Les fastes du Gothique: Le siècle de Charles V. Paris: Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, 1981. no. 36, pp. 91–92.
Schmidt, Gerhard. Gotische Bildwerke und ihre Meister. Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1992. pp. 56, n. 37, 69, fig. 49.
Boehm, Barbara Drake. Prayer Book for a Queen: The Hours of Jeanne d'Évreux. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1998. p. 8.
Boehm, Barbara Drake, Abigail Quandt, and William D. Wixom. Das Stundenbuch der Jeanne d'Evreux / The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux / Le Livre d'Heures de Jeanne d'Evreux: Commentary. Lucerne: Faksimile Verlage Luzern, 2000. p. 51, fig. 13.
Boehm, Barbara Drake. "Le Mécénat de Jeanne d'Évreux." In 1300…L’art au Temps de Philippe le Bel, edited by Danielle Gaborit-Chopin, and François Avril. Paris: Ecole du Louvre, October 2001. pp. 24–25, fig. 6.
Wixom, William D. "Medieval Sculpture at the Metropolitan: 800 to 1400." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 62, no. 4 (2005). p. 32.
Fajt, Jiri, and Markus Hörsch, ed. Kaiser Karl IV., 1316–2016: Erste Bayerisch-Tschechische Landesausstellung. Ausstellungskatalog. K*700. Prague: Národní Galerie v Praze, 2016. p. 414.
Hörsch, Markus. "Die künstlerische Repräsentation der frühen Jahre: Vorbilder und Vielfalt der bildküstlerischen Stilsprache bis 1350." In Kaiser Karl IV., 1316–2016: Erste Bayerisch-Tschechische Landesausstellung. Ausstellungskatalog, edited by Jiri Fajt, and Markus Hörsch. K*700. Prague: Národní Galerie v Praze, 2016. pp. 135–36, fig. 124.
Bolton, Andrew, ed. Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. Vol. 2. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018. p. 178.
Ciseri, Ilaria, ed. Gli avori del Museo nazionale del Bargello. Milan: Museo Nazionale del Bargello, 2018. pp. 215, 232.
Lutz, Gerhard, ed. Riemenschneider and Late Medieval Alabaster. Lewes: D Giles Limited, 2023. fig. 54, p. 105.
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