Umbrian sculptor, Mid-13th century Madonna Sedes Sapientiae

Umbrian sculptor, Mid-13th century
Madonna Sedes Sapientiae
Painted wood, 118 x 30 x 34 cm
Provenance: Pietro Accorsi Gallery, Turin

The wooden sculpture depicting the Madonna under consideration here constitutes significant evidence of mid-13th-century Umbrian plastic arts, a sphere in which painted wood sculpture enjoyed broad and lasting diffusion, particularly in rural and monastic devotional contexts. Although the work is now missing several fundamental elements, it nevertheless retains a strong formal and iconographic legibility, allowing for a convincing art-historical classification.
The Virgin is represented according to the Sedes Sapientiae type: seated frontally, with her torso erect and her hands originally positioned to hold the Child on her lap. The latter, now lost, would have been attached by means of wooden or metal pegs, as clearly attested by the holes still visible at the height of the Madonna's pelvis. The Virgin's face, oval and elongated, features softened traits, with almond-shaped eyes slightly lowered and the hint of an almost imperceptible smile—far removed both from the more archaic Romanesque rigidity and from Gothic developments. This formal equilibrium suggests a dating in the course of the 13th century.
The rendering of the wooden surfaces, still legible despite losses, displays a understated yet careful workmanship, while the residual polychromy—with the mantle in dark tones and the sleeves decorated with red bands—confirms the original importance of the painted surface in reinforcing the symbolic and liturgical value of the image.
From a stylistic and typological standpoint, the work lends itself to precise comparisons with other wooden Madonnas of central Italy. In particular, comparisons with the Madonna di Cancanelle, now at the Museo Nazionale dell’Abruzzo, the Madonna di Vallinfante at the Museo Diocesano in Camerino, and the Madonna with Child from the collegiate church of Otricoli are particularly illuminating. In all these sculptures, one finds a similar frontal arrangement, a monumental conception of the Marian figure, and a relation between Mother and Child that remains hierarchical rather than affectionate. Such affinities confirm that the work belongs to a figurative language shared between Umbria and neighboring regions, characterized by the dissemination of common models reinterpreted by local masters.
Of particular historical and collecting significance is the presence, on the back of the sculpture, of a label from the Pietro Accorsi Antichità gallery in Turin. Pietro Accorsi was one of the most important Italian antiquarians of the first half of the 20th century, renowned not only for his critical acumen but also for the famous Trivulzio Case, which led to the sale of part of the Milanese collection of Prince Luigi Alberico Trivulzio di Belgioioso and the entry into Turin's public collections of masterpieces such as Antonello da Messina's Portrait of a Man and a precious 15th-century illuminated Book of Hours featuring illustrations attributed to Jan van Eyck. The presence of the gallery label thus certifies the quality of the work and attests that it must have caught the attention of an expert of the highest level, who in all probability commercialized it during the past century.