NORTHERN FRANCE, 14TH CENTURY

As the mother of Christ, the Virgin has always had a prominent position within the Christian faith, but this was greatly enhanced in the 12th and 13th centuries, not least due to the writings of theologians such as Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153). She was extolled as the Queen of Heaven and a great intercessor on the people’s behalf, and numerous churches were dedicated to her. One result of this rise in popularity was the appearance of stories about the life of the Virgin which served to flesh out the relatively scant information provided in the bible. Here the young Virgin stands at the knee of her mother, St. Anne, learning to read. It is a scene which seems to appear first in England in the first half of the 14th century.
In his entry on the present group, Paul Williamson compares the elegant drapery style and the facial types to figures on the clôture of Notre Dame, Paris, which was carved circa 1325-35 (op. cit., p. 92). He notes the influence of the Paris school on the surrounding Ile de France region and suggests that the group offered here likely originated in this part of France, probably in the middle of the 14th century.