Gothic Polychrome Group of Saint Anne Teaching the Virgin to Read (L’Education de la Vierge)

Carved oak figure group, fully worked at the front and sides and flat to the back for placement against a niche or retable ground, retaining extensive original polychromy and gilding. Saint Anne is shown at the right as a mature woman in wimple and veil, her right hand (now lost) formerly holding or indicating a book; beside her the young Virgin, long-haired and veiled only lightly, turns attentively toward the lesson. The broad, rhythmic hems with under-folds, the angular shoes and the slightly blocky volumes are characteristic of mid-15th-century Franco-Flemish workshop practice in Picardy/Artois–Flanders.