A fine Baroque boxwood Madonna and Child Antwerp, late 17th/ early 18th century

the youthful Mother holding the Child with both hands, resting against her left hip, her gaze directed down towards her right, the feet resting on a crescent moon and atop a serpent, the tip of crescent wanting on one side, on a base of later date

Related Literature:

Leeuwenberg & Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1973

Nystad Antiquairs, Sculptures, Amsterdam, undated

Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Catalogus, Antwerp, 1969

This very fine statuette must have served for private devotion. The overall composition and elegant balance finds a close parallel in an ivory Madonna and Child preserved at the Rijksmuseum (Leeuwenberg & Halsema-Kubes no. 345), there attributed to Matthieu van Beveren, as proposed by Christian Theuerkauff, and dated circa 1680-90. A boxwood statuette of Saint Anthony of Padua, quite possibly by the same hand as the present Madonna and Child, was documented by Nystad under catalogue number 19. Described as from Southern Netherlands and dated in the first half of the 18^th century, the author draws comparison to another statuette preserved at the Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp (Catalogus no. 2320).