Statue, the Virgin and Child, carved limestone, French, Normandy, ca. 1350-1370

The Virgin holds the Christ-Child on her left arm and the remains of a flower-stem in her right hand. She wears a tall crown with foliate crestings over a veil and a multi-layered mantle drawn across her body over a gown. The Christ-Child is semi-naked, his bottom half covered with a long flowing cloth; He blesses with His right hand and holds a book in His left hand. The Virgin was acquired with an associated canopy, composed of three trefoil crocket gables, with crawling animals at the corners (a pig, a dog, arabbit , and a lion) and with tall square crenellated towers above.

Formerly in the collection of Prince Soltykoff, Paris; Soltykoff sale, Hotel Drouot, Paris, 15th April 1861, lot 227 (bought by John Webb, 510 francs); bought from John Webb, London, in 1862 (£24)

Historical significance: This particular type of Virgin and Child derives from prototypes in the Ile-de-France. The idiosyncratic treatment of the Virgin's drapery and the mannered, rather cold, represantations of the faces of both the Virgin and Child suggest that it is a provincial product. The use of inlaid glass encrustation around the borders of the Virgin's mantle points to an origin in Normandy.

Figures of the Virgin and Child were displayed on consoles which were attached to the piers of the nave or on the walls of the aisles.

Statues of the Virgin and Child were invariably painted and sometimes inlaid with further decoration. Here, there are coloured and gilded glass medaillions around the edges of the draperies in imitation of costly enamels. The lower part of the Virgin's mantle was originally richly patterned with painted roundels. The canopy above emphasised the importance of the figure.

7949:1-1862