Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (41.2000)

content of the scene - Mother’s tenderness for her Son. Lack of the original
polychromy makes it impossible to decipher the sculpture’s fuli symbolic,
a problem to which a separate part of this paper will be devoted.

Like other figures of Beautiful Madonnas, the Madonna of Wrocław is
placed on an octagonal plinth, which must have had reasons in some original
modę of presenting such sculptures, now unknownd Despite its multi-sided
rendering, it’s composition indicates that the sculpture was meant to be
viewed frontally, from a position determined by the plinth’s front edge.
With a sculpture placed otherwise, its artistic and content message become
less elear.

Formal, aesthetic and ideological values represented by the Madonna of
Wrocław fully correspond to the features of the most exquisite Beautiful
Madonnas. What then is its place in typological seąuence of these sculptures?
In-depth literaturę on the subject excuses the author of this paper from ąuoting
comparative analyses. It should be reminded, however, that the Madonna of
Wrocław, due to its typological relationship, aesthetic idea as well as formal
similarity, is related to the workshop which produced Beautiful Madonna of
Toruń (Thorn, looted by the Nazis during the Second World War and still
unrecovered, ill. 4).5 6 It is assumed that the Madonna of Wrocław, as a work
of lower artistic ąuality, is chronologically later than that of Toruń. Two other
sculptures are related to the Madonna of Toruń - Madonna of Bonn, from
the collection of the Landesmuseum in Bonn (considered to be a replica of
the Toruń sculpture) and Madonna of Sternberk in Moravia (ill. 5). In the
literaturę these sculptures are linked to one group, provisionally called
Madonna of Toruń group or Prussian-Silesian group. Despite compositional
differences, all sculptures belonging to this group are characterised by the
Child’s position above the resting leg and unsymmetrical drapery pattern. At
the same time, these features distinguish the Madonna of Toruń group from
figures from Bohemia and Salzburg area of which Madonna of Krumlon
(Krumau, ill. 6) is usually considered the major work of art. However, both
groups are not genetically distant from each other as they contain a number
of related motifs.7

5 According to the most popular opinion, these sculptures were presented separately, for example
on consoles, G. Schmidt, “K.H. Clasen, Der Meister der Schonen Madonnen”, Berlin-New York
1974”, Zeitschrift ftir Kunstgeschichte, 41, 1978, 1, p. 87; A. Legner, “Ikon und Portrat”, in Die
Parler..., op. cit., vol. 3, Cologne 1978, p. 233; D. Grossmann, view presented during debate
(Diskussion) in Die Parler..., op. cit., vol. 4, Cologne 1980, p. 195; cf. also J. Kruszelnicka,
“Dawny ołtarz Pięknej Madonny Toruńskiej”, Teka Komisji Historii Sztuki, iy 1968, pp. 9M6.

6 According to information acąuired from Polish and German art historians, after the war the
figurę of Madonna was stored in hiding in East Germany, cf.: W Kalicki, “Sztuka zagrabiona”,
part 10, Magazyn Gazety Wyborczej, 7, 1999, 42, pp. 45M6.

W Pinder, “Zum Problem der Schonen Madonnen um 1400”, Jahrbuch der preussischen
Kunstsammlungen, 44, 1923, pp. 147-171; Kutal, Ćeske goticke sochafstm' 1350-1450, Prague
1962, pp. 94-98; idem, Gotische Kunst in Bóhmen, Prague 1971, pp. 122-125; idem, “Ein neues
Buch iiber die Skulptur des Schonen Stils”, Umem, XXIII, 1975, 6, pp. 549-552; idem,
“Goticke socharstyf”, in Dejiny ćeskeho vytvarnebo umem', Prague 1984, pp. 271-272;

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