Standing Virgin and Child; Christ on right arm; Christ long robe; crown.
Hexagonal ivory base.
Longhurst 1929: French, late 15th or early 16th century (?).
Williamson and Davies 2014: South Netherlandish, 19th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Carved in the round.
Object Condition
The sculpture is worn, and the base is chipped in two places.
Comments
The Virgin and Child are copied from the "Notre-Dame de Foy", a cult image kept near Dinant in Belgium. Another ivory copy from this cult image is in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich.
Provenance
Collection of Alfred William Hearn, Menton, probably acquired after Hearn's death in 1903 by his widow Ellen Hearn, and may correspond to the "small ivory figure, Madonna" she mentions in her notebook, which she bought in Eastbourne from Thomas Sutton in February 1907 (V&A archive); Mrs. Hearn's gift to the Museum in 1923.
Bibliography
M. Longhurst, Catalogue of Carvings in Ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, 2 vols (London, 1927 and 1929), II (1929), p. 43.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), no. 22.
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