In the southern Netherlands, imported Italian marble provided the raw material for the most expensive monumental sculptures. Surviving documents indicate that a community of Christian women known as Beguines commissioned this sculpture for the high altar in their church of Saint Catherine at Diest. The cost of the material and its virtuoso carving honored the divine subjects and represented a significant investment. Her lips pursed, Mary gazes at Jesus, who reaches up to wipe a tear from his mother’s cheek. This tender image of compassion was appropriate for its patrons. The Beguines lived communally but worked in cities, where they assisted bereaved families with funerary rites and cared for the poor and sick.
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From the Beguinage of Saint Catherine, Diest, Belgium; Count Hector Economos, Paris; [ Arnold Seligman, Rey & Co., New York (sold 1924)]
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Legner, Anton. "Anmerkungen zu einer Chronologie der gotischen Skulptur des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts im Rhein-Maas-Gebiet." In Rhein und Maas: Kunst und Kultur 800–1400. Volume 2, Berichte, Beiträge und Forschungen zum Themenkreis der Ausstellung und des Katalogs, edited by Anton Legner. Cologne: Museum Schnütgen, 1973. p. 452.
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Randall Jr., Richard H. Masterpieces of Ivory from the Walters Art Gallery. Walters Art Gallery, 1985. p. 206.
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Little, Charles T., ed. Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture. New York, New Haven, and London: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006. p. 95.
Didier, Robert. "La Vierge 'Aynard' à Bruges, Beauneveu, la sainte Catherine de Courtrai et des sculptures brugeoises." Handelingen Genootschap "Société d'Emulation" Brugge 142, no. 2 (2009). p. 15.
Suckale, Robert. "Datierungsfragen sind Verständnisfragen: Zur Einordnung der Kölner Domchorstatuen." In Die Chorpfeilerfiguren des Kölner Domes, edited by Klaus Hardering. Kölner Domblatt 77. Cologne: Verlag Kölner Dom, 2012. p. 277, fig. 19.
Kunz, Tobias. "Importation de matériau ou migration transalpine? La Vierge pisane conservée au Bode-Museum de Berlin et le problème des Madones mosanes en marbre." In Les transferts artistiques dans l'Europe gothique: Repenser la circulation des artistes, des œvres, des thèmes et des savoir-faire (XIIe-XVIe siècle), edited by Jacques Dubois, Jean-Marie Guillouët, and Benoît van den Bossche. Paris: Picard, 2014. pp. 251–63, fig. 5.
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