Virgin And Child Enthroned. Boxwood, Bronze, And Sculpted Rock Crystal. 19th Century.

Virgin and Child Enthroned. Boxwood, bronze, and carved rock crystal. 19th century.
On a padded base, there is a second base in bronze, the metal from which the throne is made. It rests on four low columns with smooth shafts and capitals decorated with scrolls and simplified plant forms, decorative elements that are repeated at the waist, combined with oval blue beads; the backrest, square and openwork with very schematic scrolls, is surmounted by four carved rock crystal beads. The Virgin Mary is seated on it, wearing a crown that repeats the decorative elements of the throne, dressed in a tunic and cloak, holding a book. The Child Jesus, on her knees, also looks forward, while blessing with his right hand. The iconography comes, as usual, from Byzantine models: among the types of Theotokos, the Panakranta or Panacranta is the one in which Mary appears seated on a throne, with the Child on her knees and both turned towards the viewer, showing what was agreed at the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451 AD). These works arrived in Europe as early as the Romanesque period, developing the iconography of the West. The present work can be compared to the 13th-century Italo-Byzantine icon preserved in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC (USA), to the sculpture of the "Virgin of the Battles" from the Monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza, made around 1225-1235 and preserved in the Burgos Museum, or to the mid-17th-century Romanesque icon now preserved in the Arlanza Museum, to the sculpture of the "Virgin of the Battles" from the Monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza, made around 1225-1235 and preserved in the Burgos Museum... However, details such as the decoration of the capitals, the anatomy of the two figures, the volutes of the throne and the crown, the folds of the draperies, a certain air in the faces despite their schematization, the symmetry present in various points of the work, etc. show that the sculpture belongs to a date closer to the present time. More precisely, in the so-called neo-Gothic style: this is inspired by works from the 13th to the 15th-16th century and is opposed to the neoclassical style which preceded it; it was born in England around the middle of the 18th century, and spread throughout continental Europe in the 19th century. -
Dimensions: 10x10x24 cm