02 Mirror Case

ENTHRONED VIRGIN AND CHILD

France First half 14th century

Limestone with original polychromy Height: 57.2 cm

Provenance: Collection Delannoy, Paris; Collection Georg Schwarz, Berlin; Collection Hugo Benario, Berlin; Leopold Blumka.

Literature: Die Sammlung Georg Schwarz: Bildwerke der Antike und der christlichen Epochen in Holz, Stein, Ton und Bronze, exhib. 20–23 May 1917, Cassirer-Helbing, Berlin 1917, cat. no. 102.

Volbach, Wolfgang Friedrich. Die mittelalterlichen Bildwerke der Sammlung Benario, Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, Berlin 1923, cat. no. 6, plate IV.

Sammlung Hugo Benario, Rudolph Lepke’s Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Berlin 1976, cat. no. 81, plate 3.

Related Literature: Vitry, Paul and Brière, Gaston. Documents de Sculpture Française du Moyen Âge, D.A. Longuet, Paris 1904–13.

Forsyth, William H. ‘The Virgin and Child in French FourteenthCentury Sculpture: A Method of Classification’ in: The Art Bulletin, vol. 39, no. 3 (September 1957), pp. 171–182.

Little, Charles T. Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2006. The Virgin Mary, with a peaceful and loving facial expression, is seated on a cushion that rests on a marbleised cuboid pedestal. She is wearing a modest crown decorated with painted gems and round spires, a belted gown, a long mantel and pointed shoes. With her left arm she cradles the Christ Child sitting on her left knee while proffering him her breast with her right hand. Christ’s right arm is not depicted, nor is his right foot, though his left foot juts out from under his robe onto the Virgin’s lap. His left hand rests on the Virgin’s right hand.

The group is a supreme example of Maria Lactans (Nursing Madonna) iconography as could already be found in both 9th and 10th-century Coptic art as well as later in Byzantine painting and sculpture. However, it gained much wider popularity in 12th-century medieval Europe during the period’s movement towards realism and humanism. The iconography continued to be actively used in painting and sculpture into the Renaissance. Based on William H. Forsyth’s article, as well as the book by Dr. Charles T. Little, Curator Emeritus of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, The Metropolitan Museum of Art1, it is presumed that our Enthroned Virgin and Child comes either from near the Île-de-France or north of that region.

03

1 Comp. Forsyth op.cit. and Little op. cit.

Fig. 1. Virgin and Child seated with dragon underneath her feet, Île-de-France, circa 1300–1325, wood, 116 x 54 x 36 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. RF1369 Remains of gilding can be found on the hair of the two figures as well as on the Virgin’s crown and, selectively, throughout the garments of both (i.e. along the trim and sleeves, the Virgin’s belt and around the dark, diamond-shaped decorations of the Virgin’s robes). Areas of red polychromy remain in the folds of the Virgin’s veil and mantle, on the interior folds of the garments of both figures and on decorative details of the Virgin’s crown. The marbleised pedestal is painted red, green and yellow in what appears to have been a wet-on-wet application. There is also black polychromy on small, selective areas that appear to serve mainly as embellishments and outlines for gilding on the crown and in the trim of the garments.

This excellently preserved sculpture shows numerous similarities to the sitting Madonna from the Collection Bossy, now in the Louvre in Paris (fig. 1).

03

Virgin and Child

04

VIRGIN AND CHILD

Probably Bohemia or Franconia Second quarter of 14th century

Lindenwood with polychromy and gilding Height: 96 cm

Provenance: Collection Konrad Nolte, Germany, Delbrück.

Related Literature: Karl IV. Kaiser von Gottes Gnaden. Kunst und Repräsentation des Hauses Luxemburg 1310–1437, exh. cat., Prague 2006, Munich/Berlin 2006. The Virgin Mary and the Christ Child, held in the crook of his mother’s left arm, look serenely at the viewer. The sculpture, resting on a plinth, has been carved in the round. The upper body of the Mother of God has a pronounced curve, the ‘S’ shape resulting from the baby Jesus being positioned above the Virgin’s supporting leg. The Christ Child, sitting upright and swathed in gold, would originally have been stretching out his hand – that has since been lost – to the faithful in the manner of a New Adam. His mother is clad in a golden, blue-lined robe that lies close to her upper body; from her hips downwards the material falls to the ground in rich folds. Her head is covered with a large, white veil or maphorion, decorated with ribbons edged in red and originally held in place by a crown that is now missing.

The Madonna and Child is probably Franconian or Bohemian and is strongly modelled on French sculpture, as explained in an expertise by Dr. Markus Hörsch1 who references the Madonna and Child formerly in the Dominican convent of St. Louis in Poissy and today in the Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Anwerp.2 However our Madonna is later than the Madonna from Poissy, that dates from 1300, and its style can be compared with other figures of the Virgin Mary, based on French prototypes and created in Franconia around 1340–50, probably by a French sculptor. In this connection a comparision can be made to two stone sculptures that were carved around 1340–50 in Franconia for the Ursuline Convent of the Annunciation in Würzburg3 and the so-called House Madonna of Nordheim/Main,4 probably made for a church in Würzburg.

04

1 Expertise by Dr. Markus Hörsch, 22.02.2015 2 Illustrated in exh. cat., Prague 2006, op. cit., p. 104, cat. no. 18.1. 3 Ibid., p. 106, ill. cat. no. 19.1. 4 Ibid., p. 104–05, cat. no. 19, illustrated

04

Hörsch mentions another central work with respect to the development of later so-called ‘Beautiful Madonnas‘ (cf. cat. no. 6) – the Prague Madonna ‘Our Lady of the Old Town Hall‘ (or ‘Old Town Hall Madonna‘)5 of around 1356/57. This Madonna is of an advanced style that goes beyond that of the Würzburg Madonna. Hörsch describes our Madonna as a ‘masterpiece made in Southern Germany’ that, although still closely modelled on works produced in France, reflects this new fashion that excels the Würzburg examples already mentioned.

This style of Madonna, characterised by its softly modelled lines and pronounced hips, spread in the course of the third quarter of the 14th century throughout Bohemia and the whole of the Holy Roman Empire. It originated at the court of Charles IV as an expression of his imperial representational needs and had a major influence on European art over the following decades.6 This Madonna reveals the first stylistic responses to the new socalled ‘Beautiful Style’ in Prague, making it difficult to determine whether it was created in Prague/Bohemia or in Franconia.

5 Ibid., pp. 105–07, cat. no. 20, illustrated 6 Cf. Markus Hörsch, ‘Der Aufstieg des Hauses Luxemburg. Vielfalt der Anfänge künstlerischer Repräsentation’, in: exh. cat., Prague 2006, op. cit., p. 25ff

Hispano-Moresque Albarello

05