- 5
Southern French, late 12th/ 13th century
Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 GBP
bidding is closed
Description
Virgin and Child, or Sedes Sapientiae
- limestone
- 128.5cm., 50 5/8 in.
Provenance
Sotheby's London, 21 April 1988, lot 28
Catalogue Note
The Sedes Sapientiae (Throne of Wisdom) was at the centre of 12th- and 13th-century church liturgy. Few examples in stone survive and even fewer are this scale. A smaller statue in the Louvre (inv. no. RF1677) from the Île-de-France repeats many of the motifs seen in the present group, including the elaborately decorated crown and the morse at the neck of the Virgin. The elongation of the figures, on the other hand, is typical of Southern French and Spanish Romanesque sculpture.
RELATED LITERATURE
F. Baron (ed.), Sculpture française. I. Moyen âge, cat. Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1996, p. 70, no. RF 1677; J.R. Gaborit, La sculpture Romane, Paris, 2010, pp. 294-298
RELATED LITERATURE
F. Baron (ed.), Sculpture française. I. Moyen âge, cat. Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1996, p. 70, no. RF 1677; J.R. Gaborit, La sculpture Romane, Paris, 2010, pp. 294-298