About the Work

The present Virgin and Child is among the finest surviving representatives of the regional style of the Lorraine region in the early fourteenth century. Not only is it of substantial size and carved with exceedingly fine detail, it also retains much of the sculptor’s delicate treatment of the surface and significant amounts of original polychromy. Two statues of the Virgin and Child in the churches of Troyon and Montmédy, both in the vicinity of the region’s artistic centre, Verdun, are so closely related that they suggest they were carved by the same hand.

Provenance

Probably Anton Trampitsch, Nancy, until 1940;
Certainly Armand Trampitsch, Nancy, until 1970;
And thence by family descent, until 1980;
Their sale, Ader Picard Tajan Paris, 13 October 1980, lot 48;
Antoon Vandecandelaere, Waregem, Belgium, 1980 to 2005; and thence by family descent, until 2018.

Literature

PUBLISHED
La Gazette de l’Hôtel Drouot. L’hebdomaire des ventes publiques, 89, no. 31, 12 September 1980

RELATED LITERATURE
“A Virgin and Child of the fourteenth century from Lorraine”, Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin XVII, no. 100, April 1919, pp. 10-13;
H. Friedman, The symbolic goldfinch. Its history and significance in European devotional art, Madison, 1946;
R. Melcher (ed.), Lothringische Skulptur des 14. Jahrhunderts, exh. cat. Museum in der Schlosskirche, Saarbrücken, 2006;
J.A. Schmoll gen. Eisenwerth, Die Lothringische Skulptur des 14. Jahrhunderts. Ihre Voraussetzungen in der Südchampagne und ihre außerlothringischen Beziehungen, Petersberg, 2005.