Currently not on view
Virgin and Child,
late 15th–early 16th century
More Context
In the late fifteenth century, the prosperous south German trading centers on the Rhine and Danube were the locations of an artistic flowering in which a self-consciously "German" style spread rapidly through the area. The diffusion was aided by the invention of printmaking. One of the most active sectors of art production was carved polychrome wood sculpture, some of which was related to commissions of the type of looming altarpiece called <em>Schnitzaltare</em>, that combined painted shutters with a sculpted interior. Other commissions were for isolated groups. Carved in soft limewood (lindenwood), this Virgin and Child group illustrates the dynamic spatial relationships between figures that sculptors were able to achieve. The anonymous master, from the upper Rhine area, worked in a style close to that of two major artists: the Master of the Dangolsheim Madonna, named for his masterpiece (Bode Museum, Berlin), and Nicholas Gerhart von Leyden, a highly influential figure with documented works in Strasbourg and Vienna. (Some scholars believe the Dangolsheim Master was the youthful Nicholas.) This group was probably placed high, given the downward gazes of the figures. Since the back is hollowed out, as is usual in such sculpture, it may have been on an altar or in a niche. The polychromy is partially restored, the crown a replacement of uncertain date. The group exemplifies the late Gothic love of exuberant curves and rich draperies.
More About This Object
Information
late 15th–early 16th century
Europe, South Germany
Mathias Komor Gallery, New York; [1] Purchased in February 1954 by The Princeton University Art Museum as a gift of Carl Otto von Kienbusch for the Carl Otto von Kienbusch Jr. Memorial Collection.
NOTES:
[1] Described by Mathias Komor as a "Carved wood bust of the Virgin and Child, blessing. With old gilt and polychromy, intact, with only very slight retouching. Germany – from the Upper Rhine. Attributed to the Master of the Dangolsheimer Madonna. About 1490. With old red velvet stand." See receipt in curatorial file.
- "Recent acquisitions", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 14, no. 1 (1955): p. 17-19., p. 19
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The Carl Otto von Kienbusch, Jr. Memorial Collection (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum, 1956)
, cat. no. 64 (illus.) - Robert A. Koch, "A Gothic sculpture of the Ascending Christ", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 19, no. 1 (1960): p. 37-43., p. 37
- "The A.M. Friend, Jr. Memorial Room: given by George S. Heyer of the Class of 1952," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 25, no. 1/2 (1966): 28–29., p. 29 (illus.)
- H.R.H., "The Art Museum at Princeton University: a selection from the collections", Art Journal 26, no. 2 (Winter, 1966-1967): p. 172+174+176+178., p. 172; fig. 3
- Allen Rosenbaum and Francis F. Jones, Selections from The Art Museum, Princeton University, (Princeton, NJ: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1986), p. 57 (illus.)
- Peter Springer and Russell Stockman, "The Princeton Madonna: Views of a Remarkable Sculpture, " Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 63 (2004): 46–57. , p. 46 (illus.); pp. 47–50, fig. 1–6; p. 53, fig. 11
- Jack Soultanian, "Technical Note: A Late-Fifteenth-Century German Polychrome Wood Madonna and Child," Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 63 (2011): 58–61., pp. 58–59, figs. 1–6; p. 61 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 286 (illus.)
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 141
