Kneeling Angel

This elegant angel was originally part of a group of statuettes depicting either the Annunciation to the Virgin or Christ as the Man of Sorrows; if the latter, the angel's crossed hands may have held Instruments of Passion. The angel's refined features, the loose curls of long hair, and the fluid treatment of the folds in the thin drapery recall a group of alabaster sculptures from a retable with the Crucifixion and the Twelve Apostles formerly in Santa Maria delle Grazie, Rimini- Covignano (now in the Städtische Galerie Liebieghaus, Frankfurt). The anonymous artists responsible for the ensemble probably worked in the Burgundian Lowlands or the Rhineland, but, as the Rimini altar suggests, they appear to have produced many sculptures in alabaster for export. The personal style of the Rimini Master is closely linked to the widespread, so- called International Gothic style of about 1400, seen in this and many other alabaster statuettes of the first half of the fifteenth century.