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During a career spanning four decades, Tilman Riemenschneider produced numerous groups of the Virgin and Child, a prevalent cult image in the Catholic Church. Riemenschneider often took into consideration the intended installation when embarking on a new sculpture. The figure’s elongated thighs suggest that it was conceived to be seen from a low vantage point.

Details

  • Title: Standing Virgin with Child
  • Creator: Tilman Riemenschneider
  • Date Created: c. 1520
  • Physical Dimensions: H 119 cm
  • Technique and Material: Linden
  • Provenance: Acquired in Tauberbischofsheim in 1883
  • Museum: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst
  • Inv.-No.: 401
  • ISIL-No.: DE-MUS-815614
  • External Link: http://www.smb.museum/museen-und-einrichtungen/skulpturensammlung-und-museum-fuer-byzantinische-kunst/home.html
  • Copyright: Photo © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinisch Kunst/ Antje Voigt; Text © Renaissance and Reformation: German Art in the Age of Dürer and Cranach, A Cooperation of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, and the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen München, Catalogue of the Exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Nov 20, 2016 – March 26, 2017, Munich: Prestel, 2016; cat. no. 10 / Julien Chapuis
  • Catalogue: https://prestelpublishing.randomhouse.de/book/Renaissance-and-Reformation/Stephanie-Buck/Prestel-com/e504919.rhd
  • Artist Dates: c. 1460 Heiligenstadt–1531 Würzburg
  • Artist Biography: Riemenschneider, who is documented in Würzburg from 1483, is considered the most important German woodcarver and sculptor around 1500. His works are distinguished by the subtle design of their surfaces and his narrative ensembles by the sensitive rendering of emotions through facial expressions and gestures. Just as characteristic as the striking, dignified, and austere facial type of his figures was Riemenschneider’s repeated, presumably deliberate dispensing with polychromy on his wood sculptures. In addition to large altarpieces in wood, such as the Marian altarpiece in Creglingen, he also produced individual figures and funerary monuments in alabaster, limestone, and sandstone. As a town councilor in Würzburg, Riemenschneider took the side of the rebels in the Peasants’ War.

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