This statuette is carved out of a single elephant tusk and represents Mary holding the infant Jesus in her lap. The head of Jesus replaces a damaged or lost element. It restores the overall effect of the relationship between mother and son, who lock gazes in an intimate expression that takes no notice of the viewer looking over the shoulder of Jesus. Mary’s dress and mantle fall in deeply cut, crinkled folds that gather under the child. By contrast, sculpture’s back is flattened so that her draped veil and mantle fall in thin, almost etched creases, suggesting that the sculpture was originally meant to stand against a surface. The back edges of Mary’s throne are indented, and the surface is scored, suggesting that other elements were once attached to the sculpture, perhaps making up a more substantial throne with armrests and a back. A pair of notches on the back of Mary’s head are later interventions and once anchored a miniature crown. Mary’s features are slightly worn, and her veil has suffered a significant break that reveals the left side of her face. The ivory has a golden-brown patina and extensive craquelure (network of cracks). It also preserves significant traces of paint, especially in Mary’s hair, her collar, and the folds of her dress. The creases of Jesus’s robes also preserve flecks of red paint.

Sarah Guérin has associated the style of the current ivory, especially the construction of Mary’s face, her hands, and the folds of her dress, with a group of monumental ivories that include The Lady of Groeninghe, the Timball Virgin, and the Saint Chapelle Virgin, now in the Taft Museum, Cincinnati, and has suggested that they were all produced in the 1260’s by a sculptor intimately familiar with contemporary trends for naturalistic figural sculpture at the necropolis of the kings of France at Saint Denis. While stylistic comparisons suggest that the current sculpture is the work of a major artist patronized by the court of Louis IX of France, this object is also associated with some of the great players of the development of modern art markets and museum collections. The oldest piece of evidence for the statuette’s history is an undated, late nineteenth century photograph with an inscription stating it was in the collection of the Parisian art dealer Jules Lowengard. Lowengard is known to have purchased works from the renowned collection of Frédéric Spitzer, a Parisian dealer now infamous as a restorer, corrector, and outright fabricator of "medieval" objects. An ivory sculpture of the Virgin and Child purchased at the 1893 auction of Spitzer’s art collection for the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg (inv. no. 1893.198) is a direct copy of the current statuette, suggesting that the present sculpture passed through Spitzer’s collection at some point before his death in 1890 and served as a model for a modern replica. By 1907, the current sculpture had passed from the Lowengards to the Parisian branch of the Duveen Brothers. At some point during these years, it was incorporated into a silver processional baldachin or custodia made by Cristóbal Becerill around 1585. In 1907, Duveen Brothers sold the custodia and ivory to the American collector Archer M. Huntington, who was in the process of gathering art for his new museum of Spanish art, now the Hispanic Society of America. That museum chose to remove the unrelated ivory from the custodia (Hispanic Society, inv. no. R3019), and the ivory remained in storage until it came to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, first as a long-term loan in 1993 and then as an acquisition in 1999.

Further Reading:

Richard H. Randall Jr., The Golden Age of Ivory: Gothic Carvings in North American Collections (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1993): pp. 36.

Peter Barnet and Nancy Y. Wu, The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture (New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012): pp. 89, 195.

Sarah M. Guérin, "An Ivory Virgin at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, in a Gothic sculptor's oeuvre." Burlington Magazine 154 (June 2012): pp. 394–402.


Catalogue Entry by Scott Miller, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial and Research Collections Specialist, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, 2020–2022

Jules Lowengard, Paris ; Sir Joseph Duveen, Bt. 1869–1939, Paris ; Archer M. Huntington, New York ; Hispanic Society of America, New York (by 1906–sold 1999)

Dunlap, David W., and Sara Rimer. "A Hidden Masterpiece Comes to the Met." The New York Times (July 11, 1986). p. B4.

Shepard, Mary B. Europe in the Middle Ages, edited by Charles T. Little, and Timothy B. Husband. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. pp. 13, 96–97, pl. 88.

Randall Jr., Richard H. The Golden Age of Ivory: Gothic Carvings in North American Collections. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1993. no. 5, p. 36.

Schatz aus den Trümmern: der Silberschrein von Nivelles und die europäische Hochgotik. Cologne: Museum Schnütgen, 1995. Discussed in reference to cat. no. 38.

"Departmental Accessions." Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 129 (Jul. 1, 1998–Jun. 30, 1999). p. 18.

Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Recent Acquisitions: A Selection, 1998-1999." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 57, no. 2 (Fall 1999). p. 17.

Barnet, Peter, and Nancy Y. Wu. The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005. no. 46, pp. 81, 195.

Grandmontagne, Michael. Claus Sluter und die Lesbarkeit mittelalterlicher Skulptur: das Portal der Kartause von Champmol. Worms: Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, 2005. p. 479 n. 988.

Barnet, Peter. "Recent Acquisitions (1999-2008) of Medieval Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cloisters, New York: Supplement." The Burlington Magazine 150, no. 1268 (November 2008). p. 796, fig. VIII.

Barnet, Peter, and Nancy Y. Wu. The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture. 75th Anniversary ed. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. p. 79.

Guérin, Sarah M. "An Ivory Virgin at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, in a Gothic sculptor's oeuvre." Burlington Magazine 154 (June 2012). pp. 394–402, fig. 8–9, 15–16, 18.