Claus de Werve
Virgin and Child

Circa 1420
Burgundy
Limestone, polychromy

As the note below from the museum points out, an inscription on the bench quotes Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 24, where Wisdom says "From the beginning, and before the world, was I created…."  This does not, the museum's note notwithstanding, mean that Mary is presented here as Wisdom.  On the contrary, the exegetes invariably interpret the character of Wisdom as Christ, the eternal Son of God.  The sculpture is a variant of the "Throne of Wisdom" type from earlier centuries.  The difference is that whereas the older Throne of Wisdom pieces arranged the mother, child, and book quite formally and frontally, now we see the mother engaged in an everyday human activity: teaching the child to read.  And in a delightful paradox that invites the meditation of the viewer, what the child is learning to read is the revelation that he himself is the Eternal Word.  Thus his divinity and humanity are both intensely realized in a single artwork that reveals the paradox without presuming to resolve it.

More of the Virgin and Child

Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York


Information provided by the Metropolitan Museum, New York:
    Virgin and Child, ca. 1420
    Claus de Werve (Franco Netherlandish, ca. 1380—1439, active in Burgundy, 1396—ca. 1439), Attributed to
    French; Made in Poligny, Burgundy
    Limestone, polychromy, gilding; 53 3/8 x 41 1/8 in. (135.5 x 104.5 cm)
    Rogers Fund, 1933 (33.23)

    This monumental yet engagingly intimate image of the Virgin and Child was probably a gift of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy (d. 1419), or his wife Margaret of Bavaria (d. 1424) to the convent they founded at Poligny dedicated to the Franciscan Order of Poor Clares. This is one of four large sculptures from Poligny in the Museum's collection.

    As court sculptor in Dijon, the influential artist Claus de Werve (active 1396—ca. 1439) created many works for his patrons, and this is certainly one of his masterpieces. Its original position in the convent is unknown, but the sculpture was probably installed in the area reserved for the devotions of the nuns. In this tender portrayal Mary's role as a personification of Wisdom is evoked by the open book on Christ's lap. In contrast to the warmth of the depiction of mother and son, the biblical inscription on the bench reminds us of Christ's fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy: "From the beginning, and before the world, was I created…" (Ecclesiasticus 24:14).