Description
Nearly life-size, this masterpiece of Burgundian carving comes from a chapel in the cathedral of Besançon. The Virgin and Child, with their thick drapery, weighty bodies, and lack of ornament, reflect the 15th-century movement away from the Gothic ideal of the elegant, slender aristocrat towards greater realism and ordinary proportions. The revolution was initiated in Dijon by the sculptor Claus Sluter, in whose following this unknown master must be counted.
The Christ Child's ball represents the world and therefore his dominion over all things: the paradox of the tiny child with infinite power expressed through a childish toy.
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