Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy: gold (along the hem; fleur-de lys pattern?); brown (Christ's hair).

Reverse
Carved in the round.

Object Condition
Missing: sceptre or stem of flowers originally held by the Virgin.
Early descriptions state that the Virgin held a sceptre and lilies.
Christ's left leg damaged.
Back of the statuette with surface damage, as if it had been placed outdoors for an extended period of time.

Provenance
Collection of Peter Leven, Cologne, no. 825 (in 1853); Collection of Anton Josef Essingh (b. 1787, d. 1864), Cologne: his sale, Heberle, 18 September 1865, lot 831. Collection of Friedrich Georg Hermann Culemann (b. 1811, d. 1886), Hannover (no. 464); acquired by the city of Hannover in 1887.

Bibliography
M. A. Siret, 'Collections Essingh à Cologne', in Revue de l'art chrétien 9 (October 1865), p. 515 (no. 831), with ill.
Führer durch das Kestner-Museum, Part 2: Mittelalter und Neuzeit, ed. by C. Schuchhardt (Hannover, 1904), p. 158, no. 14, fig. 56.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, p. 240; II, no. 663.
F. Stuttmann, Mittelalter I: Bronze, Email, Elfenbein (Hannover, 1966), no. 128, fig. on p. 194.
Lust und Verlust, Kölner Sammler zwischen Trikolore und Preußenadler, exhibition catalogue, Cologne, 1995-1996, no. 262.