Sculpture

Virgo lactans

Complete except for loss to the right side of the crown and the pedestal, with the front part of the left foot and the relevant sections of the drapery breaking on the pedestal, overall worming and surface losses consistent with age. Original white gesso ground on wood with some linen reinforcements, flesh tones on the faces very well preserved, extensive remains of original gilding over dark red bole*. In the course of the 19th century, the surface was covered by an orange bole on which was applied a darker varnish, the two together recreating the effect of the wood underneath.

Although today restoration is customary with medieval pieces and sometimes desirable, modern techniques are so adept at recreating the old in a seamless manner that lines are in danger of being blurred. We have therefore opted to present the work completely unrestored, in its original state, (except for replacing some old small drapery restorations), revealing an honest beauty even the tooth of time could not diminish.

In 1932 Mme Gagne of the Musée de Sculpture Comparative described it as a most lovely example deserving of a monograph. What follows is our attempt.

One of the few pieces in the wolrd to embody the ineffable elegance of feminine figures from the Limbourg’s tres riches heures in three dimensions.

* The original scheme was most likely a white veil, hair gilt, and all the garments gilt, both inside and outside.

Provenance

Rosbach family, Bouillon (Ardennes), before 1910. Thence by descent, Brussels and London. A superb and largely unrecorded example of a Virgo lactans from the time of Charles VI, when “international Gothic”, as a style, unified Europe. As so many of the best ymagiers, both painters and sculptors, working for the extended royal family in France and Burgundy, were of Dutch or Flemish origin, and as this Virgin has her first recorded provenance in Bouillon in the 19th century, as moreover, the only wooden virgin of c. 1400-10, that survives, very wormed, from the centre of Netherlandish art, French Tournai, bears at least some resemblance to our figure in the general posture and turn of the head and veil, and treatment of the face (1), it seems fitting to start any search for provenance there.

Scholars are all agreed that the Tournai of c. 1380-1420 was a hugely important and influential artistic centre. Thus Robert Campin, the teacher of Rogier, was active there from 1404 to 1444. In music it had pioneered the Messe de Tournai of c. 1330-60, the earliest complete surviving polyphonic mass and example of “Ars Nova”, and one of the first great and influential composers, Guillaume Dufay, worked in nearby Cambrai. As a leading centre in Hainaut and French Flanders, it was not unlike the Vienna of c. 1900 in terms of concentration of talent and new creative directions. It was from there that Philippe le Hardi pulled a Claus de Haine to work alongside Marville and Sluter and others in Dijon.

It is certainly not difficult to see the Netherlandish antecedents of the international style from the 14th century, also inherited by our figure, finding expression in this region. Firstly, the pose of the hand and its sleeve seem to derive ultimately from the Mosan (Liège) work of the mid 14th c., of which the Antwerp and Diest madonnas (now in the Metropolitan Museum) are the clearest examples (2), and which continues in works such as the Madonna on the South Portal of the Church at Halle near Brussels.

When looking more specifically at contemporary work originating in this region, there is, firstly, the Master of the Hakendover Retable (3). The front female figure right of the crucifixion in the bottom register of this retable has the proportion, the poise and the way of resting the hand languidly on the hip with long folds curving back towards bottom, as also the very shape of the hand and its wide sleeve, which we also have in our Madonna, while the Child’s sleeve is exactly like those in his smaller Apostle figures. More broadly, the similarity of the sharp tubular folds contrasting with the wide horizontal folds of all drapery, already evident in the silver virgin of Jeanne d’Evreux of the mid 14th century, and probably popularised through the work of Andre Beauneveu, as we will see, is too general to be useful.

More tantalising for our purposes is the interesting figure of Janin or Jehan Lomme from Tournai, who is alleged to have resided from 1405-10 in Dijon, before going in 1411-49 to Spain to work for Charles III of Navarre, - (who was himself an Evreux (4)). Specifically, Prof. Steyart has very perceptively drawn attention to a stylistic trait of Lomme, consisting in deep parallel lines of folds of robes which part towards the socle between the feet, two on one side, one on the other, as seen in his alabaster Madonna from Olite and some alabaster apostles in the Brussels National Museum which may be attributed to him. It is a trait shared to some extent by our Madonna. Again, the way the child is blotted against the breast, the concentric circles of the upper front folds (5), the inclination of the head and the tender expression all reinforce this similarity. If one looks further at his main work in Pamplona, at the Tomb of Charles III, there are further stylistic similarities: the cardinal pleurant has similar triple curved lateral sweeps in his dress, whereas the canon pleurant has a similar pose of the hand within the sleeve as well as the frontal folds thickening and parting at the bottom (6). But there are also divergences with the style of Lomme and, as Robert Didier reminds us, an ensemble of stylistic traits that define a ‘style” or ‘school’ are not enough to define a “hand”. Thus the Chateaudun Virgin (7), probably the most accomplished French surviving example of the international style, approaches these deep bottom folds without actually having them. And it is a general motif that can even be seen in manuscript painting, the St Catherine of the Boucicaut Master in his eponymous Hours, for example. In fact, similar thick parallel folds are characteristic of the famous figure of Jeanne de Bourbon (8), which, together with Charles V, is given to Jean de Thoiry by Alain Brandenbourg; comparison is difficult however, as most of the bottom quarter of this famous portrait sculpture, including the way the folds break on the pedestal is a reinterpreted addition of a an old restoration. The same difficulty with respect to restoration of the base holds true of a walnut Virgin of similar size to ours given as end of the 14th century (9), which not only has similar rhythmic diagonal folds, but also very similar parallel folds at the front stopping short on the pedestal. The overall style, pose and crown of the rest of the sculpture are, however more standard 14th century in conception than our Virgin (10).

Perhaps in our case the parallel folds diverging towards the feet is just a variation of Sluter’s Madonna in Dijon, a figure which may have inspired many a sculptor. Certainly it is also one of the first which evinces the widening of the middle or horizontal axis of the body by means of the cloak held up by the right hand. At any rate, as Muller says (11), the records show that most important sculptors working in and around Paris for the court were from the (southern) Netherlands. And as the destruction of original works in the latter region was near complete, it is easier to study them in France.

Looking at surviving French sculpture of the time we can certainly make some initial comparisons.

The posture, tending towards effortlessness, with the head inclined towards the Child and the free hand holding, or at least pulling, one side of the cloak, thus broadening the frontal view at the hip wider than the typical “S” posture of the 14th century, is characteristic of the time. Cf. the madonna of Le Mesnil-Aubry (12).This pose, in which runaway drapery is always held in check by a central verticality, is a feature of the Parisian elegant style according to Elisabeth Antoine (13).

The strong diagonal sweep backwards of the mantle folds on the left is another clue. The closest contemporary equivalent is found in the remarkable virgin, now of Auzon (14), but assumed to have been either a gift from the Duc Jean de Berry or taken from his castle Nonette nearby at a later date, in either case made for him by one of his (Netherlandish) sculptors. More widespread later, it appears, for example, in the wooden porch sculptures begun in 1415 in Poligny (15) supervised perhaps by Claux de Werve, nephew and successor of Sluter after 1406.

The same shape, but this time also the height, turn of the head, position of hands, general pattern of drapery, except only for the drapery under the right hand, and, most interestingly, the deep parallel folds parting at the bottom, can be seen in a Virgin in Tonnerre stone, of unknown origin or authorship, and ascribed to the end of the 14th century (16).

But one of the closest comparisons, as Robert Didier has kindly confirmed, is with Cluny CL.18764, one of the earliest surviving Parisian sculptures of c. 1400, now rather weathered, taken in 1850 from the Couvent des Victorins, Paris. Beyond the general similarity in shape, of gradually widening at the hips before pulling tighter around the feet, the bowl folds down the front and the way of holding the drapery with the left hand, (similarity seen even better from the back) it is the working of the veil and detailed, long, curving hair, of the hanging folds as well as the way the Child sits on the arm, with the Virgin’s hand under the cloak, and again the folds of the sleeve lying on top of the left arm, that convince us that this Parisian milieu is the most likely provenance for our Virgin. Because the more intimate size allied to the quality suggest a smaller royal chapel as original destination, and were I to indulge in speculation at this point, I would place it in the patronage of the womanising Louis d’ Orleans, who, more than Duke Philippe le Hardi or mad king Charles VI, had a special devotion to the Virgin, and who was not only Lord of Chateaudun but married to a daughter of Galeazzo Visconti whose artistic commissions were a key in the international style at issue, just as his link, as duke, to the Luxembourg of Bohemian Wenceslas II might have brought another strand of that same style, and someone whose son, finally, called on the services of the feted Jean de Thoiry.

We can, however, go a bit further because there are equally convincing parallels with a further set of traits from another figure. Thus the same intimate inclination of the head towards a similar hunched Child can be found in a marble Virgin of similar size from this period, which is described by Paul Williamson as Northern French or Southern Netherlands (17), a sculpture which is itself often brought in relation with one of the same size now in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (18) and which has never been convincingly localised. Indeed, apart from one striking difference in dress with a consequent absence of horizontal folds, the similarities in vertical folds, crown and especially the position and type of Christ Child, including the rare detail of the Virgin’s supporting hand being inside the drapery also seen with the Victorine Virgin, are very clear. It would seem as if our Virgin is a link in a stylistic series already mentioned by Williamson starting with the one in the V&A and ending with one which has a similar pose and grasping of the mantle with the free hand, but whose drapery is both more voluminous and more varied. Interestingly, this work, which is at Vassar College, New York (19), has many similarities again, in the diagonal play of the drapery, with the Victorins Virgin, as if all these figures borrowed some traits from each other but not others. That they recognisably form a family constellation seems to suggest that there was some common paternity of atelier or milieu.

As it happens, there is one work which is attributed to the “daddy” of all court sculptors, having worked for at least three of them, one work surviving from that period which can provoke the same enthusiastic reaction, one work which is, despite its surface differences, “on the same wavelength” as far as artistic intention is concerned, and which is probably not only today the most loved piece from that time, but one which also was, in its time, one of the most influential: Andre Beauneveu’s Saint Catherine from Kortrijk/Courtrai. Besides the differences in the subject, medium, and working out of the eventual fall of loose folds on the sides, which are always unique to each work, there are a number of general as well as particular similarities that show the possible influence of this St Catherine, which was itself but a reinterpretation of the standard 14th century Virgin and Child (20). Amongst the general traits are the similarity of dress, including the mid horizontal and lower diagonal falls, the type and hang of the veil not concealing long and luxuriant hair, the way the mantle sits on the right arm and the way the frontal bowl folds, uncannily equal in number and position, join with its creases, the fall of the broader fold past the hand (which, if the missing section on the St Catherine were to be replaced, would be very close to our virgin) the hand itself, most delicate, of similar proportion and at similar angles in both cases, as well as the way the left supporting arm hugs the body tightly. Interestingly, this general scheme is also more or less shared, as F. Baron and others have pointed out, by the large marble Virgin of Cour-dieu in Orleans (21) and the smaller marble virgin of Monceaux-le-Comte (22) taken to be modelled on it. The other general scheme it partakes of is the one discussed above, of the type of Virgin holding their mantle with the right hand, like the Virgins of Chateaudun and of the Couvent des Victorins.

But the crucial feature here is that our virgin is one of the very few sculptures sharing a very particular and very striking trait with St Catherine, a trait which, within the style known as “long lines” , - characterised by elongation and vertical paralles folds, so well developed by Rogier van der Weyden in Brussels, and which is found first in Tournai according to Steyart (23),- conveys the same aristocratic elegance as the work of the Limbourg brothers in painting. Thus, it is with the elongation of the figure, straight posture and relatively small head, inclined forward, that she seems like one of the ladies from the Très Riches Heures (24), or the silverpoint drawing of various nobles by the Limbourgs now in Uppsala. There is the same mixture of very clear-cut trumpet folds with straight parallel tubular ones (where the bowl-shaped folds down the front were confined to the typical dress of the Virgin). One has to wait for the genius of a Watteau, perhaps not without coincidence from the Flemish part of France (Valenciennes) to accord the erect female figure such a central and honoured and idealised position in space.

At the same time this posture is linked to épuration, that is, the removal of unnecessary ornament and sentiment to reveal the “purity of line”. This is by no means the reduction of a bodily weight to a diagrammatic schema, the essence of a line as in fashion drawings from the 1920s (25), but rather the total articulation of a body in space by means of line. Any ideal of elegance tends towards elongation, something that is more than semantic coincidence. This was true at the beginning of Gothic art (Chartres) as at its end, as here. When this stylistic concept is exercised on a subject whose essence is the height of courtlyness and courtesy, the Queen of heaven, the result could be expected to be other-worldy, were it not for the banal earthly reality of suffering foreseen as of suckling, which instead communicates tenderness. Though there are many examples of tenderness in works of this type, the challenge at that time was to marry it with grace. It was grace which subsumed in itself, or which was the product of, all the courtly qualities that constituted the ideal aspired to, probably more in art than in life. Grace involves being free of “psychology”, that is, from the nervosity and edginess and extremes of expression or emotion that periodically return in mannered art. It is an expression of perfect balance, just as in the Middle Ages perfect bodily health was shown by having the right kind of “suave” skin colour. At the level of the body, therefore, grace is translated by means of poise. The narrowing of the shoulders as of the cloak near the base, the contrast between the horizontal folds in the upper and the vertical folds in the lower registers, and the lateral pull of the folds rounding towards the back, all contribute to express this idea of poise from whatever point of view.

The difference with a wooden virgin of similar size from a generation earlier, ex Soltykoff collection (26), shows the new degree of refinement our Virgin brings forward. The great rarity is that she does this without a trace of affectation, mannerism, exaggeration, in either pose or drapery, which cannot always be said of the more numerous surviving Schöne Madonnas from Bohemia. Everything harmonises to communicate the qualities of Courtesy, Majesty, Modesty, and Humanity that were attributed to Mary. Rather than a symbol, like the flower, typical of the earlier madonnas, clutching her own dress not only introduces a certain self-consciousness but by referring to itself and to a material thing rather than an abstraction subordinated to a religious message, it can already communicate a certain secular value, even modishness, for the first time. Another unusual and engaging detail is the way her hand passes under the Child who seems to clutch her fingers with his right hand, rather than a fruit or globe as in the more traditional symbolism, while holding on to the edge of her veil with his other hand, in both ways, emphasising His closeness to her.

In conclusion it is worth noting how the intimate nature of the feeling she evokes, the quality of her “look”, the modesty and tenderness, is one reminiscent of painting; see for example, a small panel painting of the Madonna and Child, assumed to be for private devotion, also ascribed to a Court atelier of Paris c. 1400 (27). This introspective quality still evident in the polychromy of her face is also seen on the seated virgo lactans facing him in the Brussels Hours of Jean de Berry (28) associated with Beauneveu’s fellow court painter Jacquemart de Hesdin.

Notes.

1. Steyaert 1994, fig 1. p. 92.

2. see Forsyth 1993.

3. Church of the Holy Saviour, Hakendover.

4. Jeanne d’Evreux, wife of Charles le Bel, was his Great Aunt.

5. A Tournai trait according to Steyaert.

6. Janke 1977.

7. Chateaudun (Eure-et-Loir), Sainte-Chapelle.

8. Louvre RF1378.

9. Louvre RF1373.

10. illus. Baron 1996, p. 137.

11. Muller 1966.

12. Val d’Oise, illus. Louvre 2004, no 211, p.334.

13. Idem.

14. Louvre 2004, no 212.

15. Eglise Saint Hyppolite.

16. Musée National du Moyen Age, Cl 18931.

17. V&A no A17-1941. illus. Williamson 1988.

18. Baron, 1981, no 117.

19. illus. Muller 1966, pl 61B.

20. a good example being the Vierge de la Celle, Louvre RF1398.

21. cf. M. Hasse in Die Parler 1978, p53., as circle of Beauneveu.

22. Baron 1981, no 90, p. 141.

23. Epitaph of Lamelin in Tournay cathedral, Steyart 1994, p. 61.

24. Engagement scene of April calendar.

25. Or even, given the high collar at the back, Disney’s evil Queen in Snow White.

26. Musée National du moyen Age Cl. 20627.

27. Vitale Bloch

collection, Vegas 1972.

28. Bibliothèque Albert Ier, Ms 11060, f. 11.