Milena Bartlová

Madona z Klentnice

A previously unknown Gothic sculpture of the Madonna and Child underwent restoration in 2010-2011 in the studio of Karel Stretti at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. The work was done by Petra Navrátilová as a dissertation assignment in cooperation with lecturer Markéta Pavlíková. The restored original, large parts of its drapery covered by the second-oldest polychrome layer (15th or 16th century), will be exhibited in the Moravian Gallery in Brno, while a replica completed as the assumed full form of the original sculpture will be in the Church of the Virgin Mary in Vranov nad Dyjí. The sculpture was discovered on the premises of a baroque presbytery in the village of Klentnice near Mikulov, but there is no information about where it was prior to that or where it originated. The sculpture has not passed trough the modern art market; it comes from the central Dyje river region on the border between South Moravia and Lower Austria. The sculpture was carved out of poplar, and beneath the polychrome surface the entire figure is covered with a fine canvas. The wider group of sculptures derived from the Dienstbotenmadonna in St Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna are suitable works for comparison. The Madonna of Klentnice differs from them by its more traditional shape and the placement of the child on the right. Although this compositional feature tends to be identified as specifically Bohemian, the author sees it here rather as the result of the particular original location of the sculpture and the direction of the privileged viewing angle. The Madonna bears no close relation to any other sculpture from the first quarter of the 14th century in Bohemia or Moravia, so it must be localised as 'central Danube'. Dating of the sculpture depends on which dating of the Dienstbotenmadonna we rely, but here the author adheres to the more conservative variant and dates the Madonna to the second decade of the 14th

< back