Inv. 09 IVO 01
Standing Virgin and Child; Christ seated on left arm; Christ in long robe; belt.
Namur 2010-2011: France (Paris), c. 1270.
Attribution
Unknown
Polychromy - Gilding
Traces of gilding and polychromy: lining of the Virgin's cloak, along the hems.
Reverse
Carved in the round.
Object Condition
Missing: right hand of the Virgin probably originally holding a flower (replaced with a hand holding a sceptre); left hand of Christ (once replaced with a hand holding a fruit).
Provenance
Said to have been given as a present by Louis IX (Saint Louis) to the Tournai community of Friars Minor (i.e. Franciscans) on a visit to the city when it was still part of the kingdom of France; seems to have remained with the Franciscans until the French Revolution. In 1835, became the property of a parishioner from Saint-Piat, who passed it on to the priest of Saint-Piat, but without the chapel which housed the statuette (this chapel, made in Tournai and of a later date than the statuette, is now in Berlin); property of Mgr Cantineau, a canon of Tournai Cathedral: bequeathed by him to the Treasury between 1845 and 1855, hence the appellation 'Virgin of Mgr Cantineau'.
Bibliography
Dialogue avec le visible. L'art aux sources de l'Europe (Oeuvres d'exception issues de la communauté française de Belgique VIIIe-XVIIe s.), dir. by J. Toussaint, exhibition catalogue, Namur, Musée provincial des Arts anciens du Namurois, October 2010-January 2011, no. 33, pp. 264-265 (P.-L. Navez).
KIK/IRPA database: http://www.kikirpa.be/www2/wwwopac/en/object.html [accessed October 2012].
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