Our Lady of Montserrat
Spanish School
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
c. 1900 - 1959
Materials
metal
Measurements
60 x 25 x 20 mm
Order this imageCollection
Mount Stewart, County Down
NT 1656833
Summary
Sculpture, metal; our Lady of Montserrat; Spanish or Catalan; c. 1900-1960. A small devotional statuette, a reproduction cast in metal of the venerated cult statue of the Virgin and Child known as Our Lady of Montserrat. Kept with other small religious scuptures in the bedroom of Edith, Marchioness of Londonderry.
Full description
A small cast metal reproduction of Our Lady of Montserrat, with the Virgin Mary seated hieratically upon a throne, her left hand held out before her, her right hand holding a sphere, symbolizing the world. The Christ Child is seated on her lap facing frontally, his right hand raised in blessing. The faces of Mary and the Christ Child are patinated black. On an integral stepped base. Our Lady of Montserrat is a cult statue housed in the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria de Montserrat on the mountain of Montserrat, outside Barcelona. It has for centuries been one of the most venerated cult objects in Spain. Said to have been first brought to the mountain as early as 718 for protection from Moslem invaders, the present cult figure appears in fact to be Romanesque in origin, dating from the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, and is a type of figure known as the Sedes Sapientiae, or Throne of Wisdom. Many miracles have been associated with the Lady of Montserrat, who has long been venerated throughout Spain but especially in Catalonia, where she is the patron saint. The cult statue is a rare example of a Black Madonna, in which the skin colour of the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child is black. This has led to her popular name in Catalonia of 'La Moreneta'(‘the little black girl’). Edith, Marchioness of Londonderry had a deep and constant religious faith throughout her life, She no doubt bought the little statuette on a visit to the shrine at Montserrat, recording in her memoir that she first visited Spain in 1901 and had since then made many visits to the country (Londonderry 1938, p. 35). In 1906, she and her husband were in Spain for the wedding in Madrid of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and Victoria Eugenie of Battenburg, who had become engaged at an event at Londonderry House (Londonderry 1938, pp. 81-87). The statuette is now part of a small collection of devotional objects that Lady Londonderry kept together in a corner of her bedroom at Mount Stewart. Jeremy Warren August 2022
Provenance
Edith, Marchioness of Londonderry (1878-1959); Lady Mairi Bury (1921-2009); accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the National Trust, 2013.
Makers and roles
Spanish School, sculptor Spanish (Catalan) School, sculptor
References
Londonderry, 1938: Edith Helen Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Marchioness of Londonderry. Retrospect. London: Frederick Muller, 1938.