A Masterly Hand / Scientia Artis 9

263 Emmanuelle Mercier and Delphine Steyaert 14 262 ­ voluminous mantle covering her front but leaving her dress visible at the breast and her lower right side. Her long and magnificent wavy hair is held in place by a fillet. The cascading curls that frame her face are typical of the Elsloo group, as is the drapery with fluid folds and nervous lines that accentuate the statue’s verticality. The long hands with slender fingers delicately support her son’s right side and foot. The Child holds a bird in his left hand and a flower in his right. Today, the Virgin and Child on a Crescent Moon stands on a tall column set against the pillar on the north side of the entrance to the choir. On the south side is a neo-Gothic statue of St Joseph carved by Léopold Blanchaert in 1885 after a drawing by Jean-Baptiste Bethune. Its polychromy was executed by Jules Helbig, taking the Virgin’s polychromy as a model. The original ­ location of the Virgin and Child is unknown. Perhaps it was part of a ­ Marianum, of which there are several examples in the Elsloo group, as can be seen in Neeroeteren, for exam ple. 4 The sculpture, made of oak, 5 is 1 63 centimetres high. Except for the very pale flesh parts and Mary’s pleated white chemise, it is entirely covered with gild- ing. 6 Th e gold leaf is either laid directly onto an orange bole and burnished, or applied on an ochre mordant in order to produce a less metallic sheen, as in the hair and details in relief of the clothing. The lavish use of gold leaf is ­ further enriched by a wide range of sgraffito and punched and painted patterns variously applied either to the entire surface of the garment or just to the ­ borders (fig. 1 4.2). 7 The plain burnished gold mantle has a wide border decorated with both punched and painted designs. On a punched stippled surface are letters painted in brown glaze. Today the numerous decorative patterns painted with this brown glaze appear mostly orange. This is due to flaking of the glaze, leading to losses of the gold leaf and revealing the underlying orange bole. Where still preserved , the glaze has a translucent brown tone that clearly differs from the bright red glaze used for the painted strawberries. Analyses at the KIK-IRPA by Jana Sanyova confirm the differences between the gla zes. 8 The painted letters that run along the mantle’s border appear to form at least partially meaningful texts. On the long section of hem that sweeps down from the Virgin’s right hand to the centre of the crescent below, is a verse from the Song of Solomon (Song 4:7): ‘[…] tota pulchra es amica mea / tota […]’. In the opposite border is: ‘o maria mater dei mentum / meum / nem 1525’. Perhaps this is meant to be the well known and frequently used devo- tional text ‘Maria Mater dei Memento Mei. Amen’, albeit with a number of irregularities in the Latin. If the letters nem do not stand for ‘Amen’, their meaning remains unknown as yet. Although they might also represent a sig- nature or monogram, they do not seem to correspond to a baptismal or even a family name. In the case of a monogram, the letters would most likely have been separated by a sign, as on most other contemporary exam ples. 9 Fo llowing the letters the date 1525 appears, though in an uncommon position, on the back of the sculpture (fig. 14.3). Other words can be read on the upper edges of the mantle: ‘ihesus’, ‘aev (ave?)’, ‘domine’. There are other letters in the border at 14.3 Fig. 14.2 Sgraffito , punched and painted patterns on the Virgin’s gown and in the border of her mantle Fig. 14.3 Painted letters and the date 1525 on the back of the sculpture