The Beautiful Madonna from Toruń - a Gothic sculpture depicting Mary and Infant Jesus. One of the most valuable, in terms of artistic value, images of the Madonna and Child made at the turn of the 14th and 15th century. In terms of typology and stylistics, this work is pars pro toto of the Beautiful Madonna, an iconographic type shaped before 1400. The sculpted images of Beautiful Madonnas represent the Beautiful style, a stylistic trend shaped during the Gothic period in Central Europe.
Before World War II, the sculpture of the Beautiful Madonna was located in the church of St. John, the former parish church of the Old Town, now a cathedral of the Diocese of Toruń. At the end of the war it was stolen and removed by the Germans - the trace was ultimately lost. Only the original console with the bust of Moses, which was the basis for the statue, has been preserved to this day. A faithful copy made in 1956 by Witold Marciniak was put in place of the lost sculpture of Mary and the Child.
History
Located in the southern part of the Teutonic Knights' state, Toruń became a great artistic centre in the 14th century. The patronage over the art was taken by the growing bourgeois class, which commissioned an unknown artist, described in literature as the Master of the Beautiful Madonna of Toruń, to create a monumental statue of the Mother and Child around 1390 probably for the Franciscan Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Old Town. It was moved to the church of St. Johns at an unknown date.
The beautiful Madonna was first mentioned in the sources in 1650, again in 1667-1672 as part of the visit of Bishop Andrzej Olszowski of Chełmno. Canon Strzesz mentions the Beautiful Madonna as a part of a larger altar retable placed at the eastern wall of the northern nave where today a copy of the Madonna is located on the original console with Moses.
In 1921, Jan Rutkowski subjected the sculpture to conservation procedures, removing subsequent repainting, but leaving traces of medieval polychromy. In 1942, German conservators renovated the sculpture again, filling in the cavities, and two years later the statue was removed from the console and deposited in the conservation depot in Grębocin. Fearing the approaching Red Army, the statue was taken from the depot to an unknown location, most probably deep into Germany. In 1956, a Toruń sculptor Witold Marciniak made a faithful reconstruction of the lost work, then placed it on the original console with Moses.
Appearance
The Beautiful Madonna of Toruń is a fully sculpturally developed on each side figure with a height of 115 cm. Made of limestone, with traces of polychromy on the surface. Mary was depicted at a young age, her face is full of beauty, she has delicate features, high forehead, slightly closed eyes and small lips. Her hair is curly. Her head is covered with a veil with a crown on top. She supports herself on her right leg, while her left leg is slightly bent and a little forward. As a result, the head and body are bent in opposite directions. The body figure is very blurred. The gown and the coat are laid freely, as a result the figure is largely plasticized by means of generous draperies of robes. On the right side, the robes are characterized by quite strong parallel, curved bends, while on the left side, as in the veil, they take the form of decorative festoons with cascading folds. The child is naked and sits on the mother's right arm, its eyes are directed towards the apple, which it touches with its left hand. The artist shaped the body realistically according to the child's age. The thick, curly hair of the Baby is a free personal touch of the artist. There is a strong bond between Mary and young Jesus, emphasized by the tender, gentle gesture of Mary, who gives the Baby the fruit of the apple tree. The infant reciprocates with a similar gesture, touching the apple with his left hand as well as the right hand of the Mother. This relationship of gestures creates a strong accent on the composition based also on the smooth arrangement of the garment folds, Mary's contrasting pose and slightly inclined heads. Diagonal arrangements of both poses, gestures and draperies harmoniously emphasize the dynamics of the sculpture's composition. The base of the figure is an octagonal pedestal.