It’s definitely fair to say that I was excited to discover a medieval religious art museum in a former church, so that’s another set of posts that will be occupying me all week. This is a sculpture made of oak that depicts the Virgin Mary and Jesus, with a suspicious amount of paint remaining which makes me wonder if it has been touched up somewhat.
Anyway, this was the new French influence where the Virgin Mary was looking in a caring manner towards the baby Jesus, rather than the previous more formal look that had been the norm. She’s holding an apple, but that’s rather for religious symbolism than what the child might have wanted to eat. The information panel at the museum notes that Mary is standing on a dragon, although I’m not sure that I would have realised that.
I’ve had AI have a play with it and I think this is probably a reasonable stab at how it looked. I’m impressed that it has pulled out the dragon thing to at least some degree, although the imagery is obviously wrong there.
The sculpture was likely once in a church and it has been dated to around 1270. It was likely made in Cologne, but the wider throne the sculpture sits on was likely changed in the later medieval period.