The Virgin

This statuette of a Virgin is carved in painted limewood. The Virgin is seated on a throne, her body turned to the right with outstretched arms.

The figure probably came from the corpus of an altarpiece, and was considered at the time of acquisition to be Frankonian. The style and the facial type however, recapitulate formulae of Upper Rheinisch sculpture of the early 16th century.

It is suggested that the Virgin was made by a follower of the sculptor Hans Wydyz, a sculptor of whom not much is known about. Wydyz was active in Freiburg/Breisgau, where he was recorded from 1497 to 1510, and probably later in Strasbourg.