Virgin from Santa Maria in Veciana

Although the Virgin of Veciana still corresponds to the traditional iconographical model of the 12th-century Virgins, it is a carving that already incorporates the new airs of the Italo-Byzantine style introduced to Catalonia at the beginning of the 13th century. This new more humanistic style can be seen in the fact that the Virgin no longer has the Child sitting in the middle of her lap, but he has been moved to her knee, initiating a more maternal relationship with regard to her son. Curiously the Child is sitting on her right knee, as in the carving of the Virgin from Santa Fe in Segarra exhibited in the same room, opposite it, and contrary to what is more habitual in the Catalan Romanesque images of this period. The Virgin is crowned and wears a blue cloak in the classical tradition that covers one of her shoulders. The fact that she does not present the stylistic traits characteristic and typical of the workshops of La Seu d'Urgell or Vic suggests that it could be a carving done in the workshops of Barcelona during the second quarter of the 13th century.