Details

LOT 0390

Medieval 'Our Lady of the Flames' Limestone Figural Scene

15TH CENTURY A.D. OR LATER

14 7/8 in. (10.55 kg total, 37.7 cm including stand).

Carved in the half-round frieze fragment or devotional sculpture of the Madonna del Fuoco, facing female in wimple and long robe with her right arm bent forward, left arm extended above a child gripping the folds of her robe; billowing flames surrounding the pair; mounted on a custom-made stand.

Provenance

Acquired Lukas Pearsie, Suffolk, 2012.
Property of a Kent collector.
From the N.J. collection, Leicester, UK.

Footnotes

One version of the legend of 'Our Lady of the Flames' concerns an image of Mary and the Infant Jesus which was saved from a house-fire at Forli, near Ravenna, Italy by a miraculous intervention. The icon burst out of the wall of the blazing house to the astonishment of the locals, who reported it to the church authorities and it was subsequently accepted by a papal legate as a miracle. The legend was propagated in an early Italian printed book by Giuliano Bezzi called "Il Fuoco Trionfante" (The Triumphant Fire) printed in 1637. The events are said to have taken place around 1420 A.D.