Nostre Dame de Grasse, detail of
the Virgin's face, after restoration.
Photo : Daniel Martin Little is known of early 15th Century Toulousain sculpture. Very few works have survived. On the other hand, later regional sculpture clearly shows the influence of Nostre Dame de Grasse until as late as 1520.
The characteristic traits discernible in this work indicate sources in common with the major artistic centres of the period (Burgundian, Bourbon and Languedocian) but tell us little about its creator. There are, for example, the taste for full drapery, fur-lined garments and blond hair rendered by way of small hooked strokes…
Attributed to a sculptor from the Toulouse
region, Vierge a l'Enfant after restoration.
Church of Gommecourt (Yvelines).
Photo : Restaurateurs
The highly detailed, very fluid treatment of the folds of the dress and the mantle is particularly noteworthy. The face with its extremely delicate contours, its small round chin, the sad, dreamy expression of the eyes and mouth of a Virgin who seems already to have a premonition of the Passion, are truly characteristic of the faces of the sculpture of the region for which Nostre Dame seems to have provided a prototype which was often used, but rarely equalled.