Wooden sculpture depicting the crowned Virgin with Child

French origin, Sculptor from Île-de-France

Late 16th - Early 17th century

The statue, in oak wood, is made from a single trunk

Height: cm. 102 cm., Width cm. 44

This elegant wooden sculpture, depicting a superb full-length Virgin with Child, is the work of a French master sculptor active between the 16th and 17th centuries.

The crowned Virgin appears standing, she appears as a refined and elegant queen but with hieratic attitudes, wrapped in a sumptuous robe, held on the chest by a diadem that stops her mantle which then encircles her shoulders.

Our sculpture, which in its elegant design can only evoke the canons of the French Gothic tradition, will capture the admiration of every lover of ancient sculptures, certainly for its ideal beauty but, at the same time, also for its strength and meaning. of solemnity that it manages to convey.

The quality of the work and the richness of the details, among which the details of the drapery obtained with abundance in the wood stand out, allow to bring it closer to the rich and elegant sculptural production typical of the Île-de-France area (or the nearby Grand East), most likely of Paris which, starting from the 14th-15th century, became one of the major centers specialized in sculpture and architecture.

The inspiration for our author must necessarily also have been Italian art and in particular of Florentine Renaissance culture. His style is therefore a personal synthesis of these suggestions: the rendering of the garments and draperies of his figures refers to the French Gothic sculpture, while the attention to the naturalistic rendering of the bodies and faces is due to the nascent sensitivity Renaissance.

The work takes up the magnificent stone statue of the Virgin and Child that adorns the west facade of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, or the Virgin and Child of the gothic cathedral of Strasbourg in the Alsace region.

It is a work of exceptional sculptural quality, presented in excellent conservation conditions, with a splendid burnished patina, and has small lacks.