Osservazioni

Virgin and Child.
Spain or Southern France.
Middle or second half of twelfth century.
Painted walnut, height 24 in.
(Mr Arthur Kauffmann, London.)
As the taste of generation moves further back into the Middle Ages, the sophistication as well as the grandeur of the so-called 'Primitives' is once again fully appreciable. This Madonna formerly belonged Georg Schwarz, and in the sale catalogue of his collection (Cassirer Helbing, Berlin, 24th May 1917, No. 99) it was described as French. Otto Schmitt and Georg Swarzenski, on the other hand, in their Meisterwerke der Bildhauerkunst im Frankfurter Privatbesitz (Vol. I, No. I, p. 9, Fig. I) called it Spanish. This fluctuation of opinion concerning the figure's country of origin is hardly surprising, for throughout the twelfth century the French Midi was almost more closely related with Christian Spain then with the Northern Provinces of France. From about 1075 nearly all Spanish queens came from France, as did numerous archbishops, bishops, and abbots. The artistic influence from Languedoc was especially strong along the Pilgrim Road that led through Toulouse to the tomb of St James at Compostela in north-west Spain, as is attested by the close stylistic relation between the sculpture of Toulouse and that of the two great gateways of the Cathedral at Santiago. Only the extremely well-preserved plychrome of the figure tends to point to a Spanish origin, for in Spain painters co-operated with sculptors to produce an art of which this Madonna is an outstanding example.

Bibliografia specifica:
Selarte, 22, 1956, p. 77