This is an alabaster statuette, depicting the Virgin and Child, made in England in the late 14th century. This large, heavy figure of the crowned Virgin, wearing a close-fitting gown and a cloak draped from her right arm, stands holding the Christ Child on her right arm. He wears a gown and a cloak and holds an orb in his right hand and his left rests on the Virgin's exposed right breast.

There are two sorts of alabaster. Calcite alabaster is very hard and was used in ancient times. This object is made of gypsum alabaster which is a fine-grained, soft and smooth stone. Although at first glance it looks a little like marble, which it was intended to imitate, it was much easier to carve due to its softness, and alabaster objects were therefore significantly cheaper to produce. Marble does not originate in England, so it was imported if needed. The carving of alabaster, mostly quarried in Tutbury and Chellaston near Nottingham, took on industrial proportions in England between the middle of the 14th and the early 16th centuries. The market for altarpieces and smaller devotional images was a large one. It included not only religious foundations but also the merchant classes. Many hundreds of English alabasters were exported, some as far afield as Iceland and Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain.