Seated Virgin and Child (Virgo lactans); Christ seated on the Virgin's right knee; bare-chested Christ; Christ playing with the Virgin's veil; crown; cushion.
Lowden 2008: Paris, c. 1400. Radiocarbon tests provide a date of 600+- 35 BP, i.e. 95% probability of a date between 1290 and 1410.
Museum's opinion 2008: Paris, c. 1400.
Attribution
Unknown
Reverse
Carved in the round.
Object Condition
Missing: finials in the crown of the Virgin; base (was probably in metal and traces in the ivory show it was glued and dowelled in place).
The ivory was conserved c. 1996-2000.
Provenance
Said to have belonged to a cathedral treasury before the Revolution. Mrs. Bonnefille, France: said to have been acquired by her father (a general) before 1939 in Reims from an art dealer friend called Mr. Vandyck; Galerie Ratton-Ladrière, Paris (Galerie Ratton-Ladrière, XVIIIe Biennale internationale des antiquaires (Paris, 1996), pp. 5-6); Thomson collection, Toronto: acquired from Guy Ladrière, Paris, 30 June 2000 via Sam Fogg, London; since 2008, The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Toronto.
Bibliography
J. Cherry, J. Lowden, Medieval Ivories and Works of Art: The Thomson Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, 2008), cat. 15.
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