A South Netherlandish Walnut Devotional Sculpture of the Virgin and Child Enthoned

A finely carved small devotional sculpture depicting the Virgin and Child Enthroned, produced in the Southern Netherlands during the early sixteenth century.

The Virgin is seated upon an elaborate high-backed throne, supporting the Christ Child upon her left knee. Christ holds a small book, an attribute associated with the Holy Scriptures and Christ as the Word, while the Virgin’s raised right hand appears originally to have held a now-lost attribute, possibly a flower or flowering stem.

Carved in walnut, the sculpture combines the elongated proportions and flowing drapery of the late Gothic tradition with the newly fashionable architectural vocabulary of the Renaissance. Its intimate scale suggests that it was intended for private devotion, perhaps within a domestic chapel, chamber or small devotional shrine.

The sculpture may be placed within the artistic environment of Brabant, encompassing the important centres of Brussels, Antwerp and Leuven, during the first decades of the sixteenth century.