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Artwork Details
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Title:Virgin and Child
Date:ca. 1260–70
Geography:Made in Paris, France
Culture:French
Medium:Elephant ivory with traces of gilding
Dimensions:Overall (without base): 5 3/4 x 1 7/8 x 1 9/16 in. (14.6 x 4.8 x 4 cm) Overall (with base): 7 9/16 x 2 3/8 x 1 13/16 in. (19.2 x 6 x 4.6 cm)
Classification:Ivories-Elephant
Credit Line:Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
Object Number:17.190.175
This ivory statuette presents the Virgin Mary, standing and holding the young Jesus in her left arm. With a loving smile, she returns the gaze of her child, who appears to laugh as he reaches out to touch her chin and veil. She wears a form-fitting thirteenth-century gown called a kirtle. Her mantle crosses her body and gathers in her left hand, forming a cascade of folds down her right leg. The artist has paid close attention to the physical properties and weight of fabrics, contrasting the kinetics of taut fabric on the chest and under Mary’s arm with the looser, unweighted fabric of the mantle. This attention to the motion of bodies in space also extends to the design of the bodies, with Mary firmly grasping the infant Jesus by his bottom and swaying backward as he reaches playfully to touch her face. This posture also takes advantage of the curve of the elephant tusk from which the sculpture is made, a trick that Parisian ivory carvers of the thirteenth century developed to increase the scale of their works. Mary’s right hand is missing, revealing the dowel which was attached after a previous break. The sculpture is otherwise in excellent condition. All elements are original, and though slightly abraded the sculpture retains a vivid naturalism that interjects intimacy into the relationship between Mary and her child. The surface has a creamy patina and dehydration cracks or craquelure. The base is modern.
This miniature sculptural group reflects contemporary developments in sculpture on the monumental scale. The largescale sculptures of the Virgin and Child on cathedrals of Amiens and Paris share this miniature’s upright pose, cascade of draperies, and naturalistic sway under the weight of the infant child. Mary’s smile, expressive of tender affection, also reflects features encountered in Virgin and Child groups in the cathedrals of Naumburg, Bamberg, Magdeburg, and Reims. Paul Binski has called attention to developing intellectual strands in thirteenth-century Europe that foregrounded the human body as the site where metaphysical events such as revelation, salvation, and mystical communion were experienced. In such intellectual environments, artists developed methods of representing the face that sought to reflect on the state of the soul. In these cultures, a closed smile suggested control of the self, and could be deployed to represent the inner emotional and spiritual state of holy beings like angels, saints, and human souls ascending to heaven. Open mouths showing the teeth and tongue came by contrast to be associated with bestial, with uncontrolled passions, and with hubris, and emerged as a method of representing the fallen spiritual state of damned souls, demons, and Satan (see, for instance acc. nos. 30.73.261; 1988.159 and Binski 1997, 353-54). Elina Gertsman has called attention to the ambiguity of the smile in Gothic art and noted the necessity for context when interpreting facial expression (Gertsman 2010, 27). In this example, the sacred character of Mary and her son would have guided medieval devotees to interpret the smile as a symbol of inner peace and the joyful character of the saved Christian soul.
Further Reading:
Paul Binski, "The Angel Choir at Lincoln and the Poetics of the Gothic Smile," Art History 20 (1997): pp. 350-74.
Elina Gertsman, "The Facial Gesture: (Mis)Reading Emotion in Gothic Art, Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 36 (2010): pp. 28-46.
Sarah M. Guérin,"An Ivory Virgin at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, in a Gothic sculptor's oeuvre." Burlington Magazine 154 (June 2012): pp. 394.
Tom Williamson and Glynn Davies, Medieval Ivories, 1200-1500: Part 1 (London: Victoria & Albert Publishing, 2014): pp. 23-82.
Sarah M. Guérin, "Introduction to Gothic Ivories," in Gothic Ivories Calouste Gulbekian Collection (London: Scala Arts & Heritage Publishers Ltd., 2015): pp. 16-35.
Catalogue Entry by Scott Miller, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial and Research Collections Specialist, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, 2020–2022
Le Fèbre-Bougon, Amiens; Félix Doistau ; [ Marcel Bing, Paris (sold 1906)]; J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York (1906–1913)
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux Arts de la Ville de Paris. "Exposition universelle de 1900. L'exposition retrospective de l'art francais," April 14–November 12, 1900.
Catalogue officiel illustré de l'exposition retrospective de l'art français des origines à 1800. Exposition universelle de 1900. Paris: Lemercier & Cie., 1900. no. 94, p. 264.
Koechlin, Raymond. Les Ivoires Gothiques Français: Volume I, Text. Paris: Editions Auguste Picard, 1924. no. 75, p. 101.
Koechlin, Raymond. Les Ivoires Gothiques Français: Volume II, Catalogue. Paris: Editions Auguste Picard, 1924. no. 75, p. 34.
Koechlin, Raymond. Les Ivoires Gothiques Français: Volume III, Plates. Paris: Editions Auguste Picard, 1924. no. 75, pl. XXVI (cat. no. misidentified no. 74 on pl.).
Grodecki, Louis. Ivoires français. Arts, styles et techniques. Paris: Librairie Larousse, 1947. p. 87.
Seidel, Max. "Studien zur venezianischen Goldschmiedekunst des 15. Jahrhunderts." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 16, no. 1 (1972). p. 43, fig. 51, 54.
Little, Charles T. "Ivoires et art gothique." Revue de l'art 46 (1979). p. 62, fig. 11.
Gaborit-Chopin, Danielle. "Une Vierge di'ivoire du XIIIe siècle." La revue du Louvre et des Musées de France (1983).
Wixom, William D. "A Late Thirteenth-Century Ivory Virgin." Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 50, no. 3 (1987). p. 341–42, fig. 4.
Bertrand, Etienne. Un chef-d'œuvre reconsidéré: une exceptionelle Vierge parisienne en ivoire du milieu du XIIIe siècle. Paris: Brimo de Laroussilhe, 1994. pp. 14–17, 22, fig. 9.
Wixom, William D. "Medieval Sculpture at the Metropolitan: 800 to 1400." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 62, no. 4 (2005). p. 28.
Guérin, Sarah M. "An Ivory Virgin at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, in a Gothic sculptor's oeuvre." Burlington Magazine 154 (June 2012). p. 394.
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