Fragment Of Altarpiece: The Swooning Of The Virgin, Ardennes, 16th Century

This fragment of an oak altarpiece, formerly polychromed and gilded, represents the Swooning of the Virgin. This episode inspired by the apocryphal gospels of Nicodemus experienced its greatest development at the end of the Middle Ages, notably within the production of sculpted altarpieces. Here the sculptor immortalizes the moment when the Virgin fainted from the pain felt at the sight of her son's torture on the cross. Mary is held in her fall by the apostle John, with curly hair and a beardless youthful face. Dressed in an elegant beaded headdress tied under her chin, Mary Magdalene carries the Virgin's inert hand while wiping her tears with the lapel of her coat in a gesture full of pathos. In the background, a third veiled holy woman joins her prayers and her sorrow to the group. This fragment must once have logically taken its place in the right wing of an altarpiece, at the foot of a Crucifixion. From a stylistic point of view, it must be compared to the Swooning from the church of Noirval, in the Ardennes, which was also once part of a more important altarpiece. In addition to the fact that it uses a very similar composition, its protagonists also have the same physiognomies as those visible on our panel. The latter are characterized by full facial features marked with small ball chins, a pointed nose and very elongated thin almond-shaped eyes. This close stylistic proximity between the two reliefs makes it possible to attribute them to the same workshop. Undoubtedly taking as a model the famous altarpieces of the southern Netherlands, this altarpiece lifts the veil on an original Ardennes production still poorly known, of which very few testimonies have reached us, and through its discovery completes the landscape of "France altarpieces" at the end of the Middle Ages.