Middle or Upper Rhine, end of the 15th century Saint... - Lot 3 - Crait + Müller

Lot 3
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4000 - 6000 EUR
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Result : 7 500EUR
Middle or Upper Rhine, end of the 15th century Saint... - Lot 3 - Crait + Müller
Middle or Upper Rhine, end of the 15th century Saint Odile of Alsace High relief in lime wood, hollowed out back. H. 84 cm Damage, missing parts and worm holes in the lower part. This lime wood sculpture, which was part of a monumental altarpiece made by a German workshop at the end of the 15th century, represents Saint Odile, the patron saint of Alsace. The hagiography of the Merovingian abbess Odile of Hohenbourg (c. 660-720), written and circulated in the 9th century, is largely legendary. Born blind, the young Odile recovered her sight at her baptism, and this miracle became the basis of her cult and, by extension, of her iconography. Indeed, in the same way as Saint Lucy, the abbess is medica oculorum, patroness of the blind and of oculists. The patron saint of Alsace is therefore represented in the costume of a Benedictine abbess wearing a pair of eyes placed on a book, symbol of the Rule of her Order. These traditional attributes are all three together on our work. The slightly slanted "blind" gaze of the saint could also refer to her birthright blindness. This attachment to conventional iconography was spread precisely in the region of her cult, in Alsace, and later in the Rhine regions. The artist who executed this work knows and masters perfectly the techniques and formal characteristics of the great Rhenish masters of the late Gothic period. The care taken in the treatment of the angular and deep draperies, the delicacy of the fingers, the softness emanating from the small, inclined head topped with a broad veil whose shadows further accentuate the Saint's inward expression, all bear witness to his great dexterity.
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