Art in an Early Global World at WAM: A WAM/College of the Holy Cross CollaborationMain MenuAmanda Luyster17d39c1ecea88fb7ff282fe74a410b89478b8327Created by the Worcester Art Museum and the College of the Holy Cross, with the Worcester Public Schools AP Art History class of 2024. Financial support provided by the Medieval Academy of America and "Scholarship in Action" at Holy Cross.
Although the biblical story depicts the Virgin Mary giving birth to her son Jesus in an animal stable in the Levant, she appears here with her infant as an elegant lady of the French court, carved from smooth and polished ivory. Both raw materials and finished goods crossed the Mediterranean in the 1300s, and ivory harvested from the tusks of African elephants became a coveted medium for Parisian sculpture. At the same time, private worship was becoming increasingly popular among the upper levels of society. Familiar religious imagery, such as the Virgin and Child, appeared not only in enormous stained glass and life-size sculptures, but also in tiny carvings like this one. Small-scale ivory sculptures of the Virgin and Child became so popular that they were produced in large numbers by French workshops. This shift towards the miniature marked the final flowering of the Gothic style in medieval France.
