Long hidden in private collections, this ivory sculpture is one of the great masterpieces on view at The Cloisters. It belongs to a larger series of European thirteenth- and fourteenth-century, generally small-scale, precious ivory statuettes of the Virgin and Child in seated and standing postures. Most of the series is French, and certainly from the Île-de-France if not from the preeminent center, Paris. All of these statuettes—the rare English examples and the numerous French works—are devotional in nature and date from the height of popularity of the cult of the Virgin.
The Cloisters' Virgin turns slightly to her left to face the blessing Christ Child, who at one time climbed up over her left knee. Only a portion of the toes of the infant Christ's right foot and of his lowered left leg and foot remains. The Virgin's back is carved in low-relief folds, suggesting that this sculpture was not meant to be seen in the round.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Enthroned Virgin and Child
Date:ca. 1300
Geography:Made in Normandy, France
Culture:French
Medium:Elephant ivory
Dimensions:Overall: 10 3/4 x 5 5/16 x 3 3/4in. (27.3 x 13.5 x 9.6cm)
Classification:Ivories-Elephant
Credit Line:The Cloisters Collection, 1979
Object Number:1979.402
This sculpture is carved out of a single slab of ivory and represents the seated Mary holding the infant Jesus (mostly missing) in her lap. Mary’s face is moon-shaped, with a high, wide forehead, a pointed chin, and almond-shaped eyes. A veil covers her hair except for a small halo of waves around her face, and she is dressed in a mantle and a belted gown or kirtle. She twists her torso to her left and her downcast gaze looks toward the now-lost Jesus. Her mantle slips off her left shoulder, its ends crossing upon her lap to form diagonal draperies that overlay the vertical, deeply cut folds and pleats of her kirtle. The gown meets the ground in a series of horizontal folds that Mary treads with her feet. The back is finished, but the smooth, planar quality of the carving suggests that it was not meant to be seen from behind. The sculpture is heavily damaged. Both of Mary’s lower arms are missing, as are fragments of her veil, while a large hole on the middle of her breast once held a jeweled brooch. Only the feet and lower legs of Jesus remain, with a pair of protrusions on Mary’s torso showing where he leaned his arm against her for support. The sculpture also once incorporated a bench, possibly of another material. The heavy scoring and two holes on the bottom of the statue demonstrate that the sculpture and bench were joined with both dowels and glue. The ivory grain is oriented vertically, and the heavy reddish-brown patina reveals its "Schreger lines," the guilloche-pattern arrangement of nerve cavities visible in cross sections of elephant ivory. The patina darkens on the back to nearly black, and William Wixom argued that it may have been a reaction to high heat or a deliberately applied pigment like madder or walnut oil.
Scholars often associate ivory sculptures of Mary and the infant Jesus with thirteenth-century workshops in Paris. In the twentieth century, scholars such as Dean Porter, Neil Stratford, and William Wixom have proposed an English origin for the present statue. They have called attention to similarities between Mary’s physiognomy and draperies and those encountered on English sculptures such as the Eleanor Crosses, figures of queens on the portals of Lincoln Cathedral, miniature figures of mourners from the tomb of Edmund Crouchback at Westminster, and fragmentary sculptures of seated figures from Glastonbury Abbey. Another ivory statuette, now in the collection of Yale University Art Gallery (inv. no. 1956.17.5), also closely follows the similar compositional formulae, suggesting that they share a common date and region of origin. Paul Williamson, however, has called attention to a group of related ivory sculptures (Victoria and Albert Museum inv. no. 201-1867; Louvre inv. no. OA 10004; Kryzhanovskaya cat. no. 98) that share the distinctive gathering of the mantle across the knee. All these sculptures have French provenances in modern times, suggesting that they originated somewhere in the north of France, possibly in Normandy.
Further Reading:
Dean A. Porter, "Ivory Carving in Later Medieval England, 1200-1400." PhD diss., State University of New York, Binghamton, 1974.
Neil Stratford, "Glastonbury and Two Gothic Ivories in the United States." In Studies in Medieval Sculpture 3 (London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 1983): pp. 208–14.
William D. Wixom, "A Late Thirteenth-Century Ivory Virgin." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 50, no. 3 (1987): pp. 337–58.
Peter Barnet, Images In Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age (Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1997): pp. 182–83.
Marta Kryzhanovskaya, Western European Medieval Ivories: Catalogue of the Collection (St. Petersburg: The State Hermitage Museum, 2014): p. 159.
Paul Williamson and Glynn Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550, Part 1 (London: Victoria and Albert Museum Press, 2014): pp. 56-59.
Catalogue Entry by Scott Miller, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial and Research Collections Specialist, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, 2020–2022
[ Georges J. Demotte 1877–1923, Paris and New York (1928) ] ; Mr. and Mrs. John Hunt, Drumleck Baily, Co. Dublin (before 1936–1979) ; [ Howard Ricketts, London (in 1979 as agent for the Hunts) ]
Burlington Fine Arts Club. "An Exhibition of Gothic Art in Europe, ca.1200–1500," 1936.
Royal Academy of Arts. "Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England, 1200-1400," November 6, 1987–March 6, 1988.
Detroit Institute of Arts. "Images in Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age," March 9–May 11, 1997.
Walters Art Museum. "Images in Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age," June 22–August 31, 1997.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Mirror of the Medieval World," March 9–June 1, 1999.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions," October 24, 2008–February 1, 2009.
Seventh Loan Exhibition: French Gothic Art of the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Century. Detroit: The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1928. no. 69, ill.
Burlington Fine Arts Club. Catalogue of an exhibition of Gothic art in Europe (ca.1200-c.1500). London: Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1936. no. 24, p. 33.
Porter, Dean A. "Ivory Carving in Later Medieval England, 1200-1400." PhD diss., State University of New York, Binghamton, 1974. no. 33, pp. 96, 98, 101–02.
Wixom, William D. "Curatorial Reports and Departmental Accessions." Annual Report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 110 (July 1, 1979–June 30, 1980). p. 41.
Kleinbauer, Walter Eugene. "Recent Major Acquisitions of Medieval Art by American Museums." Gesta 19, no. 1 (1980). p. 68, fig. 5.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Notable Acquisitions, 1979-1980 (Metropolitan Museum of Art) (1980). pp. 22–23.
Howard, Kathleen, ed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983. no. 20, p. 368.
Marks, Richard. Burrell, a Portrait of a Collector: Sir William Burrell, 1861-1958. Glasgow: Richard Drew Publishing, 1983. pp. 133–34.
Stratford, Neil. "Glastonbury and Two Gothic Ivories in the United States." In Studies in Medieval Sculpture. Occasional Paper, n.s., Vol. 3. London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 1983. pp. 208–14, pl. LXXXVI b.
Marks, Richard. The Burrell Collection. London & Glasgow: Collins Publishing, 1984. p. 91, fig. 7.
Binski, Paul, and Jonathan J. G. Alexander, ed. Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England, 1200-1400. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1987. no. 518, p. 424.
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. p. 108, pl. 101.
Wixom, William D. "A Late Thirteenth-Century Ivory Virgin." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 50, no. 3 (1987). pp. 337–58, fig. 1a–e.
Wixom, William D. "Medieval Sculpture at The Cloisters." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 46, no. 3 (Winter 1988-1989). p. 61.
Young, Bonnie. A Walk Through The Cloisters. 5th ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988. p. 106.
Randall Jr., Richard H. The Golden Age of Ivory: Gothic Carvings in North American Collections. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1993. p. 51.
Howard, Kathleen, ed. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. 2nd ed. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994. no. 20, p. 402.
Barnet, Peter, ed. Images In Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age. Detroit: Detroit Institute of Arts, 1997. no. 35, pp. 182–83.
Wixom, William D., ed. Mirror of the Medieval World. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999. no. 142, pp. 119–21.
Barnet, Peter, and Nancy Y. Wu. The Cloisters: Medieval Art and Architecture. New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005. no. 48, pp. 83, 195.
Evans, Helen C., ed. The Philippe de Montebello Years: Curators Celebrate Three Decades of Acquisitions – Online Catalogue. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008.
Barnet, Peter. "Medieval Europe." In Philippe de Montebello and The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1977–2008, edited by James R. Houghton. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009. p. 23.
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. 81.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012. p. 209.
Tomasi, Michele. "Note su due avori goticidel Museo Civico d’Arte Antica." Palazzo Madama: Studi e Notizie, 2012–2013 3, no. 2 (2013). pp. 23–24, fig. 9.
Williamson, Paul, and Glyn Davies. Medieval Ivory Carvings, 1200–1550. Vol. 1. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2014. pp. 57–58.
Bleeke, Marian. "Ivory and Whiteness." Different Visions: New Perspectives on Medieval Art 6 (2020).
Luyster, Amanda, ed. Bringing the Holy Land Home: The Crusades, Chertsey Abbey, and the Reconstruction of a Medieval Masterpiece. Turnhout, BEL: Harvey Miller Publishing, 2023. fig. 106, pp. 241, 248,.
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