"Virgen en Majestad (Sedes Sapientiae)". Escultura en madera tallada y policromada. Escuela castellana. León. ...

"Virgen en Majestad (Sedes Sapientiae)". Escultura en madera tallada y policromada. Escuela castellana. León. Románico. Mediados del siglo XIII.
example of Romanesque Marian imagery, which has its original polychrome preserved intact. 53,5 x 18,5 x 13 cm.
The Madonna is facing forwards, crowned, wearing a headdress and seated on her throne of glory as queen and at the same time forming a throne for the Christ Child, who gives blessing with the right hand.
Wearing a tunic in ochre tones and an orangey cloak that covers her lap, on which the Christ Child rests, being also in a forward facing position and in the attitude of giving blessing with the right hand, holding the book of the Holy Scriptures in the left.

As Dr. Pitarch points out, the sculpture is: "inheritor of the tradition and theme formulated since the second half of the 12th century, there is an echo of the transformations that originated in the second quarter of the 13th century, after the modernisation of sculpture by the large workshops at the cathedrals of Burgos and Leon. There are new elements in the depiction of the theme of the Maiesty and in the Virgin Mary’s attire that had not been seen before. The first thing one notices about this carving is the conception of symmetry to a central axis, verticality and the geometrical tendency, softened by the modelling of the polychroming." For this reason, Professor Pitarch compares this Madonna to the Maiestas Mariae at the Astorga Cathedral museum, with the one at Osorno La Mayor in Palencia, with that in the collection at the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago and the one at Leon Cathedral museum, which came from the Monastery of San Miguel de la Escalada, among others. The lot includes the report by Dr. Antoni José J Pitarch.