The Virgin is wrapped in a large cloak held in place by her crown. Beneath it she wears a fine tunic and a dress with a gem-studded neckline. In her right arm she holds the Christ Child, who grips a rosary with large beads that originally dropped down into the mother’s left hand. A fracture runs almost the entire height of the figure, from the Virgin’s left foot (where it is 1.5 cm wide) to her chest. On the right is a second deep radial crack. Other damage affects the most significant protruding parts: the Child’s right hand, some toes from his left foot and some fingers from the Madonna’s left hand, as well as much of the rosary. There are also extensive areas of loss in the region of the crown, which is now missing almost all its fleurons. There is evidence of numerous wood-boring insect attacks and areas where the wood has started to deteriorate. This is most evident on the side of the Christ Child and on the back, on the right-hand side of the sculpture. 

The plaster ground and the paint are incomplete. The fields of uniform colour still visible today seem to have been gone over and only feature a limited palette: pink, blue and green for the clothes, brown and ochre to simulate the gilding in the Virgin’s crown, the gems around her neckline and on the edge of her cloak. The colouring has particularly worn away on the areas of flesh, revealing the livid ground. There are small patches of a warmer pink pigment, which is the only remaining evidence of the earlier application.  The right side of the Christ Child has undergone damage, but the blue colour of the clothes also covers the affected parts, indicating the modernity of this application. 

The sculpture does not offer a frontal vision, but instead a slightly threequarter vision, angled towards the Virgin’s left. From this viewpoint we can see Mary’s beautiful profile, her protruding foot and the gesture being made by the Child, who seems to be presenting the rosary for devotion, while his mother directs her thoughtful gaze downwards. The left side of the Virgin is also the best finished, with the most details, such as the long lock of hair that ripples down her side. This was probably the position in which the sculpture was originally placed, perhaps inside a niche or against a backdrop. In fact the back is only roughly worked and the two large metal nails there, one of which has been bent back, possibly indicate that it was secured to a structure behind it. 

The Madonna’s elongated face, her broad rounded forehead, her long thin nose, her heavily lidded eyes that give her an almost childish expression, her protruding lips, her hair in stylised waves and the arrangement of the drapery, with overlapping “V” shaped folds in the centre of the dress, are all elements that were common to sculptures produced in northern France and Flanders during the second half of the 15th century, which were still inspired - albeit in a somewhat diluted and standardised way - by the powerful influence exercised over those regions by the great Flemish sculptors working for the Court of Burgundy. 

The Cerruti sculpture has all these features, although the quality of the carving denotes the work of a provincial workshop and it is therefore difficult to suggest a more detailed attribution. Apart from the Virgin’s beautiful face, the work has been created in an economical style with very few personal accents. The structure of the Child’s anatomy is almost nonexistent, with locks of hair that are barely hinted at. The Virgin’s dress falls in a few simple folds, embellished by modest decoration, which is restricted to the gem-studded neckline and perhaps, originally, a polychrome palette. 

Comparisons can be made with the wooden Virgins and Child attributed to the region of Brabant in the second half of the 15th century,¹ or generically to Flanders, including a Madonna in the Falaise Sands Point Museum in New York, one in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, and a St Margaret at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.² Similar faces with marked features and pointed noses also appear in the ivory sculptures made in Flanders in around the mid- 15th century, such as the openable Marian altarpieces and the caskets with religious subjects, confirming the geographical provenance of this work.³ 

The iconography of the Virgin of the Rosary allows us to date it to the final decades of the 15th century. The first Rosarian confraternity was founded in Cologne in 1475 and was the prototype for many more inspired by the same devotion that proliferated over the course of the next quarter of a century in Germany, the Netherlands and France.⁴ The subject was surprisingly widespread in art, thanks to the printed reproductions and small liturgical objects, such as the pax, including the ebony example from Noiretable, which is comparable to the Cerruti Madonna in terms of style.⁵ 

The inventory drawn up by Boccador and Bresset (1972), which lists this sculpture as a work from Burgundy dating to the last quarter of the 15th century, provides some important details regarding the recent history of the group, initially recording its passage into the hands of the antiques dealer Armando Colombari and then into the Becchis Collection, also in Turin. It is not possible to document the source of this information, or to establish whether these names indicate actual provenances or simply middlemen involved in sales. However, the data is compatible with the types of purchases Cerruti usually made, buying almost exclusively from the market in Turin. Beneath the Virgin’s right hand we can see the numbers “10” and “461” in black pencil. These refer to previous unidentified inventories or auctions. Despite its modest craftsmanship, this sculpture fits well into the collection because of its intimate and devotional tone, perfect for displaying within the limited spaces of the house and museum. Indeed, it was placed in one of the drawing rooms on the first floor, forming a pendant with the saint with the long plaits (cat. p. 444), creating an ideal harmony with it because of the colouring, dimensions and European style. This arrangement conveys a scenic taste and the quest for unchanged order, typical of an early 20th-century collection. 

Benedetta Chiesi 

¹ See Steyaert 1994, esp. nos. 17, 63, 84.

² See Holladay, Ward 2016, pp. 56-57, no. 33; p. 65, no. 39; pp. 534-535, no. 370.

³ F. Scholten, in Rotterdam 2012, pp. 224-225, no. 52; G. Davies, in Williamson, Davies 2014, pp. 509-518, nos. 175-177.

⁴ See Réau 1957, pp. 120-122; Humfrey 1988, pp. 8-9; Olson 1998, pp. 263-276; A. M. W. As-Vijvers, “Weaving Mary’s Chaplet: the Representation of the Rosary in Late Medieval Flemish Manuscript Illumination”, in Rudy, Baert 2007.

⁵ Vivet-Peclet 2007, pp. 67-92.