Virgin with Child - Workshop of Ulm, 1470-1480

This very beautiful Swabian sculpture represents the Virgin standing, carrying the infant Jesus naked on her left arm. According to iconographic tradition, this nudity underlines the human nature of the incarnate god who holds the orb in his left hand, a symbol of his spiritual and temporal domination over the world.
The Virgin is richly dressed in a purple dress under a thick mantle of gold and azure. Brought back in front of his legs, the latter falls in elaborate folds alternating smooth planes and interlocking V-breaks.
With her right hand, Marie supports the plump foot of her son according to an iconographic scheme identical to that implemented on the Virgin and Child of the Apocalypse from the former collection of Doctor Oertel. Now kept in the Cloisters, this sculpture from Ulm, made around 1480, and our sculpture unequivocally share a community of visual references. Wearing the same full crown, both feature faces similar with a perfect oval overhung by a broad forehead, heavily influenced by the female physiognomies of the great sculptor Michael Erhart. This type is also used on a beautiful Saint Barbara from the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, also attributed to the Ulm workshops and dated between 1470 and 1480.