Attribution
Unknown

Polychromy - Gilding
Extensive traces of polychromy and gilding (modern polychromy covering earlier polychromy): pink (flesh; modern), brown (hair, shoes), gold (along the hems; cushion), red (inside of the Virgin's veil; brooch), blue (Virgin's cloak; brooch), green (cushion).The hems are lavishly decorated, some with kufic characters and foliated scrolls containing lions and eagles. The main cracks in the ivory have been hidden with painted foliated motifs.

Reverse
Carved in the round.

Object Condition
Missing: right forearm of the Virgin and left hand of Christ (replaced); part of the crown.
Foliated decoration hiding the cracks.

Comments
The statuette is placed on an 18th or 19th-century painted hexagonal wooden pedestal on two levels with thin columns.

Provenance
Probably made for Cardinal Arnaud de Via (d. 1335), nephew of pope John XXII and cardinal deacon of Saint-Eustache (in 1317), founder of the Collégiale de Notre-Dame in 1333 to which he certainly donated the statuette of the Virgin; kept in the Trésor de la Collégiale Notre-Dame until 1986 when it was deposited at the Musée Pierre de Luxembourg.
Note: A 1649 document mentions an 'effigies B. Virginis ex ebore alaborate' as being in the Collégiale. However, this could also refer to a statuette mentioned as being in the nearby charterhouse of the Val de Bénédiction c. 1365: 'ymaginem beate Marie cum suo tabernaculo totum de ebore'. An 1889 photograph indeed shows the statuette within a Gothic tabernacle.

Bibliography
Exposition universelle, exhibition catalogue, Paris, 1867, no. 1749.
L. Bruguier-Roure, 'Découvertes et travaux archéologiques dans le Gard', in Bulletin monumental (1889), pp. 160-161.
E. Molinier, Histoire générale des Arts appliqués à l'Industrie. I: Les Ivoires (Paris, 1896), p. 187.
Exposition Universelle de 1900, Catalogue illustré Officiel de l'Exposition Rétrospective de l'Art Français (Paris, 1900), no. 82, with reproduction on p. 15.
E. Molinier, F. Marcou, L'Exposition rétrospective de l'Art français des origines à 1900 (Paris, 1900), p. 7 and ill. (héliogravure).
L. Valla, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon: Guide du voyageur et notes historiques (Montpellier, 1907), pp. 244-246.
R. Koechlin, Les Ivoires gothiques français (Paris, 1924), I, pp. 106-107, 212; II, no. 103; III, pl. XXXI.
F. Benoit, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (Paris, 1930), pp. 49, 62.
Exhibition of French Art 1200-1900, exhibition catalogue, London, Academy of Arts, 1932, no. 41a.
L. Grodecki, Ivoires français (Paris, 1947), p. 92.
F. Salet, 'L'Église Notre-Dame de Villeneuve-les-Avignon', in Congrès archéologique de France: 121e session, Avignon et Comtat Venaissin (Paris, 1963), pp. 175-190.
Trésors des églises de France, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Musée des arts décoratifs, 1965, no. 627.
J. Taralon, Les Trésors des Églises de France (Paris, 1966), pp. 256, 304.
R. H. Randall, 'A Monumental Ivory', in Gatherings in Honour of Dorothy Miner, ed. by U.E. McCracken, L.M.C. Randall and R.H. Randall, Jr (Baltimore, 1974), pp. 282-300.
P. Williamson, Medieval Sculpture and Works of Art. The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection (London, 1987), pp. 118, 120, fig. 4.
A. Girard, Le Musée de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (Colmar, 1988), p. 2.
N. Lacombe, Villeneuve-lez-Avignon: Notes historiques (manuscrit de 1960) (Avignon, 1990), p. 275.
A. Girard, 'Le décor en Chartreuse: la place de la Chartreuse de Villeneuve-lès-Avignon dans le développement de l'image', in Le décor des églises en France méridionale (Cahier de Fanjeaux 28), 1993, pp. 363-383.
A. Girard, L'Aventure gothique entre Pont-Saint-Esprit et Avignon du XIIIe au XVe siècle (Aix-en-Provence, 1996), p. 79.
Images in Ivory. Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. by Peter Barnet, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, 1997, p. 55.
L'art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils (1285-1328), exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 1998, no. 108.
B. Sournia and J.-L. Vayssettes, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, histoire artistique et monumentale d'une villégiature pontificale (Paris, 2006), p. 133 and p. 357, n. 30.
J. Wirth, L'image à l'époque gothique (Paris, 2008), pp. 160-161 and 225.
H. Aliquot et C. Harispe, La collégiale d'Arnaud de Via, un paradis à Villeneuve-lès-Avignon (Avignon, 2010), pp. 5-6.
S. Guérin, 'An ivory Virgin at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, in a Gothic sculptor's oeuvre', in The Burlington Magazine 1311, Vol. CLIV (June 2012), pp. 394-402 (p. 395 footnote).
J. Lowden, Medieval and Later Ivories in the Courtauld Gallery (London, 2013), p. 55, in relation to no. 5.
P. Williamson and G. Davies, Medieval Ivory Carvings 1200-1550 (London, 2014), in relation to no. 6.