Inv. WM XXIa 40
Seated Virgin and Child; Christ seated frontally (Sedes Sapientiae); Christ holding a fruit in his left hand; belt; Christ seated on the Virgin's left knee; Christ making a blessing gesture with his right hand; Christ in long robe; bench; crown.
Museum's opinion 2013: France, end of the 13th century.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Carved in the round, but lower relief on the back.
Compartment defined by a trefoil arch in the back of the Virgin's seat, certainly to hold a relic. Traces of two hinges on either side of this receptacle, for the doors which would have closed it.
Object Condition
Missing: right hand and upper part of the Virgin's head; right thumb of Christ.
Chipped on the right side of the base. The pins to hold the crown and the base remain in place.
Comments
According to Gebhardi 1770, the hole at the back of the base originally contained a relic of the Virgin's cloak.
Provenance
Lüneburg, Monastery of St. Michael; Lüneburg, Ritter-Akademie Museum (1792-1852); Hannover, Royal Palace Chapel (1852-1861); Hannover, Welfenmuseum (1861-1955); transferred to the Hannover, Niedersächsischen Landesmuseums in 1955.
Bibliography
L. A. Gebhardi, Collectanea, Auszüge und Abschriften von Urkunden und Handschriften, welche das Herzogthum Lüneburg betreffend (Hannover, 1762-1798), vol. 5 (1770), p. 210.
Das Konigliche Welfen-Museum zu Hannover im Jahre 1863 (Hannover, 1864), p. 63.
H. W. H. Mithoff, Kunstdenkmale und Alterthümer im Hannoverschen (Hannover, 1871-1880), vol. 4 (1877): Fürstenthum Lüneburg, p. 164.
Die Kunstdenkmäler der Provinz Hannover (Hannover, 1900), p. 56.
F. Krüger, Die Kunstdenkmäler der Provinz Hannover: Regierungsbezirk Lüneburg (Hannover, 1906), p. 190, fig. 12.
Jahrbuch des Provinzial-Museums zu Hannover (Hannover, 1926), vol. II, p. 42, fig. 38.
F. Stuttmann, Der Reliquienschatz der Goldenen Tafel des St. Michaelisklosters in Lüneburg (Berlin, 1937), no. 19, fig. 70.
Welfenschatz, Schatz der Goldenen Tafel, Lüneburger Ratssilber, Hildesheimer Silberfund, exhibition catalogue, Hannover Kestner-Museum, 3 December 1956-17 March 1957, no. 78.
F. Stuttmann, Mittelalter I: Bronze, Email, Elfenbein (Hannover, 1966), no. 111, fig. 189.
R. Marth, Der Schatz der Goldenen Tafel: Kestner-Museum Hannover (Hannover, 1994), p. 23, p. 34, no. 24, fig. 22.
Lust und Verlust, Kölner Sammler zwischen Trikolore und Preußenadler, exhibition catalogue, Cologne, 1995-96, no. 262.
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