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Lot Essay
The present work is a maquette for the monumental sculpture in the Church of St Matthew, Northampton. Although the Mother and Child theme had obsessed Moore from the beginning of his career, he found himself hesitating to agree to the Reverend Walter Hussey's request for a sculpture of the Madonna and Child for St Matthew's. He has said of the carving that it was "one of the most difficult and heart-searching sculptures that I ever tried to do" (as quoted in A. G. Wilkinson, The Drawings of Henry Moore, New York 1984, p. 290). Moore also pointed out that it was perhaps the only sculpture which could be called a commission. "For my other sculptures that have been used in public, such as the UNESCO 'Reclining Figure' or even the figure on the St James' Underground Station, which was the very first piece of public sculpture I did, I was using my own subject matter and sometimes I had already made the maquettes" (op. cit., p. 291).
The implication of a religious subject caused him the most worry. He had to consider "in what ways a Madonna and Child, differs from a carving of just a Mother and Child - that is, by considering how in my opinion religious art differs from secular art. It is not easy to describe in words what this difference is, except by saying in general terms that the Madonna and Child should have an austerity and a nobility, and some touch of grandeur (even hieratic aloofness) which is missing in the every day Mother and Child idea. Of the sketches and models I have done, the one chosen has, I think, a quiet dignity and gentleness. I have tried to give a sense of complete easiness and repose, as though the Madonna could stay in that position forever. The Madonna is seated on a low bench, so that the angle formed between her nearly upright body and her legs is somewhat less than a right angle, and in this angle of her lap, safe and protected, sits the Infant" (as quoted in D. Mitchinson, Henry Moore Sculpture, with Comments by the Artist, London 1981, p. 90).
Other casts from the edition are housed in the Tate Gallery, London, the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia.
The implication of a religious subject caused him the most worry. He had to consider "in what ways a Madonna and Child, differs from a carving of just a Mother and Child - that is, by considering how in my opinion religious art differs from secular art. It is not easy to describe in words what this difference is, except by saying in general terms that the Madonna and Child should have an austerity and a nobility, and some touch of grandeur (even hieratic aloofness) which is missing in the every day Mother and Child idea. Of the sketches and models I have done, the one chosen has, I think, a quiet dignity and gentleness. I have tried to give a sense of complete easiness and repose, as though the Madonna could stay in that position forever. The Madonna is seated on a low bench, so that the angle formed between her nearly upright body and her legs is somewhat less than a right angle, and in this angle of her lap, safe and protected, sits the Infant" (as quoted in D. Mitchinson, Henry Moore Sculpture, with Comments by the Artist, London 1981, p. 90).
Other casts from the edition are housed in the Tate Gallery, London, the Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia.