Blessing Child Jesus made of wood carved in the round,...

Blessing Child Jesus made of wood carved in the round, polychromed and gilded. Entirely naked, the Child holds a sphere symbolizing the World in his left hand and blesses with the other. Oval face with a clear forehead, a snub nose, a smiling mouth and a heavy chin; hair with voluminous locks on the sides and falling into the nape of the neck; chubby body with a prominent belly and thighs underlined by bulges.
Mechelen, ca. 1500/1510
Height: 37 cm
(polychromy, cross of the globe missing)
These Christ-Children, Salvator Mundi, a specific production of the Mechelen workshops at the end of the Middle Ages, were intended for feminine devotion. It was in fact customary to offer them to women who took the habit; they could have a wardrobe to dress their nakedness.
Works consulted: W. Godenne, "Préliminaires à l'inventaire général des statuettes d'origine malinoise présumées des XVe et XVIe siècles" in Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen (Actes du
Cercle royal pour l'antiquité, les lettres et l'art de Malines), 80, 1976, pp. 71-105; A. Huysmans sous la dir. de, La sculpture des Pays-Bas méridionaux et de la Principauté de Liège XVe et
XVIe siècles, Musées royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels, 1999, pp. 158-159.

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