The Virgin Seated under a Canopy Holding the Child, with Isaiah and David on the Sides of the Throne
Unknown · c. 1350-1375
The Virgin sits on a throne beneath a small carved canopy, the Child on her lap, and the ensemble is treated like a piece of miniature architecture. Walk round to the sides of the throne: two Old Testament figures are carved there, the prophet Isaiah, who foretold that a virgin would bear a son, and King David, the royal ancestor of Christ. They turn the seat into a statement of Mary's place in sacred history. Traces of colour survive on the stone, and the sculptor, working in the Nivernais in the third quarter of the fourteenth century, combined the majesty of the seated type with the gentler expressions of his own time.
The statue comes from the leper hospital of Saint-Lazare at Nevers, whose church also served as a parish church. The hospital moved to Saint-Didier in 1696, the buildings became national property at the Revolution, and the church was sold on 28 September 1791 and later destroyed. A private individual rescued the statue; by 1856 it belonged to the du Verne family of Nevers, who had placed it in the church of Saint-Etienne. Madame du Verne gave it to the Louvre in 1893 through the parish priest.
Did You Know? For decades the statue stood in a Nevers parish church while still legally belonging to a local family, who finally gave it to the Louvre in 1893.
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