This delicately ornamented sculpture depicts the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus Christ, as a figure relevant to both the spiritual and the secular realms. She stands in a protective, maternal pose, her body and arms safeguarding her child. This embracing posture was a customary way of embodying the intimate, familial relationship between mother and child in late medieval works. Her dual roles as both virgin and mother distinguish Mary from typical women. She reflects an elevated status reinforced by the way early Christian and medieval authors wrote about her miraculous virginal pregnancy, announced through angelic revelation.

Accordingly, this small statue positions Mary between the human and heavenly spheres. As an object of devotion, she both participates in and transcends the experiences of other women.

Small statues of the Virgin and Child and other devotional items were often worked in ivory, a material valued for its symbolic associations as well as its rarity. The Wyvern Virgin, covered as it was in gold, would have had a similar aura of spiritual luxury. Although many similar statues survive from the later Middle Ages, most have lost the colors, gilding, and metal details, such as crowns, that originally adorned them; the preservation in this example of so much of its original gold paint is a rare testament to the original appearance of such statues. This lingering evidence of paint is best seen in the drapery of Mary’s overgarment, the fabric transforming her human body into a golden, divine vision.

The two bodies in this piece are presented differently: Christ is mostly nude while Mary is heavily draped. This clear contrast between male and female, infant and adult bodies reflects both social and moral codes of the time. The thin layer of gold defining Mary’s body can be read as a royal cloak, a reading reinforced by the figure’s crown. The golden layers of heavy fabric continuously piling and falling into V-shaped folds lead the viewer’s eye around the image, and also suggest other readings. Art historians have explored the ways in which clothing can hint at underlying issues of sexuality and gender. In this image, the deeply creased V-shaped folds of the Virgin’s robe hint at her soft flesh and female anatomy without actually revealing her naked body. (1) Perhaps Christ is permitted more nudity since his body is imagined as the genesis of all life—his body is everyone’s. Although his status as an infant is increasingly emphasized in this period, medieval viewers would likely not have understood this to be separate from his adult human and divine natures.

Precious and portable, this statue and many like it served as religious works for private and elite audiences. This sculpture has been worked in more depth and detail on the front of the object, establishing a specific point of view. This frontality suggests that the Wyvern Virgin and Child was most likely intended for a private altar, or another setting in which the owner could gaze on the Virgin and Child, contemplating the divine mysteries embodied in the work.

Camila Papadopoulo, Class of 2020