Statue of the Virgin Mary from the Annunciation Group

Late Gothic, 1480-1490
Anonymous carver from Vienna or Lower Austria
Limewood, polychromed and gilded
h 148,5 cm, w 60 cm, d ca. 50 cm
property of the Roman Catholic Church of Veľký Biel

loaned by the Church of the Holy Cross of Veľký Biel to the Slovakian National Gallery of Bratislava

This beautiful Late Gothic sculpture of the Virgin Mary from the 1480s was originally part of a larger, now lost Annunciation Group. Extant sources tell us that the statue once stood on the main altar of St. Martin’s in Bratislava, and this is where it would have been during the Mass celebrated at the opening of negotiations in 1515. In the course of the 1734 baroque transformation of the church’s interior the Gothic main altar was replaced by a baroque one featuring an equestrian statue of St. Martin made by G.R. Donner. Although large portions of the Gothic altarpiece were later destroyed in a fire, the statue of Mary survived, ending up in the Church of the Holy Cross in Veľký Biel on the outskirts of Bratislava/Preßburg
Denkmalamt der Slowakei, Bratislava