Fragment of a Double Capital: the Annunciation, the Visitation and Foliage
Unknown · c. 1125-1150
On this block, probably part of a double capital, two scenes from the beginning of Christ's story unfold among leaves. In the Annunciation the angel Gabriel greets Mary; in the Visitation the pregnant Mary embraces her cousin Elizabeth. The figures are short and lively, their gestures pressed close to the surface of the stone, and plant ornament fills the remaining space. Faint traces of paint remind you that the capital was once fully coloured. Its origin is unknown, but analysis of the stone in 1984 pointed to limestone from Paris or its region, and the style fits the workshops of the Ile-de-France just before the birth of Gothic sculpture at Saint-Denis.
The piece belonged to the collector Octave Homberg, who displayed it as the support for a separate Virgin of the Visitation, also now in the Louvre. After his death his widow, Marie-Anne Kolb, gave both to the museum in 1908 in his memory, and the capital entered almost unnoticed, included in the gift as the base of the statue it carried. Long attributed to Auvergne, it has since been returned to the Paris region.
Did You Know? The capital slipped into the Louvre as the pedestal of another sculpture and was only later recognised as a work in its own right.
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