”VIRGIN WITH CHILD ON THE THRONE”. BOXWOOD, BRONZE AND ROCK CRYSTAL. 19TH CENTURY.

Virgin with Child enthroned. Boxwood, bronze and carved rock crystal. XIX century. On an upholstered base, another second base has been placed in bronze, the metal from which the throne is made. This stands on four low columns with a smooth shaft with capitals decorated with scrolls and simplified vegetal forms, decorative elements that are repeated at the waist, combined with oval blue beads; The backrest, square and openwork with very schematic scrollwork, is topped by four carved rock crystal pearls. The Virgin Mary is seated on it, with a crown that repeats the decorative elements of the throne, dressed in a tunic and mantle and with a book in her hand. The Child Jesus, on her lap, 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 lap and both facing the viewer, showing what was agreed upon. at the IV Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451 AD). These arrived in Europe already in the Romanesque period, developing the iconography of the West. The present work can be compared with the Italo-Byzantine icon from the 13th century preserved in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC (United States), or the carving of the “Virgin of Battles” from the Monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza, made around 1225-1235, and preserved in the Museum of Burgos, or the Romanesque of the mid-17th century today in the Museum of Fine Arts of Buenos Aires (Argentina), although there are a large number of examples. However, details such as the decoration of the capitals, the anatomy shown by the two figures, the scrollwork of the throne and the crown, the folding of the cloth, a certain air in the faces despite their schematization, the symmetry present in various points of the work, etc., show that the carving belongs to a date closer to the present. Specifically, the style known as Neo-Gothic: this was inspired by works from the 13th to the 15th-16th centuries and was opposed to the preceding Neoclassical; It was born in England around the middle of the 18th century, and spread throughout continental Europe in the 19th century.

· Size: 10x10x24 cms