Carved statue of woman with baby and child
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

A light-skinned woman stands on a wide green plank. Her hands are pressed together in a prayerlike position. She has very long, curly brown hair, and her eyes gave down and to the left. Her eyelids are slightly narrowed, her mouth is downturned, and her chin is plump and pointed. The woman wears a very long gilded cloak that pools on the base below her. In the bottom left fold of her gown is a nude light-skinned baby lying on his back reaching up with his arms and legs. Behind the baby is a child in a gilded robe looking down and to the left.

Gallery Text

A plump infant Christ lies in the crescent-shaped fold of his mother’s mantle, supported by a wingless angel. The Virgin holds her hands in prayer, her body invisible beneath the sweeping curves of her cloak. The separation of the figures and the contrast between their bodies eloquently express the central idea behind a mystical vision of Saint Bridget of Sweden that circulated in southern Germany in the late Middle Ages; in it, Mary describes Christ’s birth as painless and sinless — a miraculous appearance. The sculpture is carved neither fully in the round nor fully in relief: the Virgin’s hands are naturalistic, yet her back is unfinished, her hair carved just enough to enable a three-quarter view. This play with dimensionality, made possible by the soft linden wood, underscores this mystical interpretation of the Nativity. Its shallow depth and unfinished back also suggest that it may have been placed in a chapel, where it was intended for personal contemplation.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
BR63.1
People
Unidentified Artist
Title
The Nativity
Other Titles
Original Language Title: Adoration of the Child
Classification
Sculpture
Work Type
sculpture
Date
c. 1500
Places
Creation Place: Europe, Germany, Upper Rhine
Culture
German
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/222988

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2500, European Art, 13th–16th century, Art and Image in Europe
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Polychromed and gilded linden wood
Dimensions
71.8 x 77.5 x 22.9 cm (28 1/4 x 30 1/2 x 9 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
R. von Passavant-Gontard, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (1921-?). Walter von Pannwitz collection [1], Munich and Berlin, Germany, sold; [to Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York, NY (?-1963), sold]; to Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1963.

Notes:
[1] The sculpture was almost certainly in the collection of R. von Passavant-Gontard in Frankfurt as early as 1921. It is included in the 1921 “Meisterwerke der Bildhauerkunst in Frankfurter Privatbesitz,” featuring works from Frankfurt’s private collections. Although the publication does not identify the private collection by name, it is almost certainly the Passavant-Gontard collection. In 1929 the sculpture was included in the Passavant-Gontard collection catalogue.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Antonia Paepcke DuBrul Fund
Accession Year
1963
Object Number
BR63.1
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
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Publication History

  • Georg Swarzenski, Meisterwerke der Bildhauerkunst in Frankfurter Privatbesitz: Deutsche und Französische Plastik des Mittelalters, Frankfurter Kunstverein (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1921), cat. no. 128 p. 27, repr. as pl. 128
  • Georg Swarzenski, Sammlung R. von Passavant-Gontard, Städelsches Kunstinstitut (Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1929), cat. no. 94 pp. 22-23, repr. p. 28 as pl. 94
  • "Accessions of American and Canadian Museums", Art Quarterly (Summer 1963), Vol. 26, No. 2, 249-277, p. 250, repr. p. 252
  • Alfred Werner, "The Inspired Wood Carvers of the Gothic Age", American Artist (December 1963), pp. 40-45, 67-70, repr. p. 41
  • Charles L. Kuhn, German and Netherlandish Sculpture, 1280-1800, the Harvard Collections, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA, 1965), p. 15, cat. no. 22 pp. 66-67, repr. as pl. XIX
  • Anneliese Harding, German Sculpture in New England Museums, Goethe Institute (Boston, MA, 1972), p. 15, repr. p. 38 as fig. 48
  • Charles Werner Haxthausen, The Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Abbeville Press (New York, NY, 1980), p. 97, repr. pp. 96-99
  • Anita F. Moskowitz, Gothic Sculpture in America, I: The New England Museums, ed. Dorothy W. Gillerman, Garland Publishing, Inc. (New York, 1989), no. 158 pp. 196-197, repr.
  • Julien Chapuis, Tilman Riemenschneider: Master Sculptor of the Late Middle Ages, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC, 1999), p. 156, repr [in: Timeline of Selected North American Acquisitions of German Late Gothic Sculpture]
  • Peter Nisbet and Joseph Koerner, The Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, ed. Peter Nisbet, Harvard University Art Museums and Scala Publishers Ltd. (Cambridge, MA and London, England, 2007), p. 229

Exhibition History

  • 32Q: 2500 Renaissance, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu