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Lot Essay
The soft face, projecting upper lip, bulbous chin and the formation of the nose and eye of the present head are all highly comparable to that of the figures of the Entombment in the church of Saint-Nicolas at Neufchateau in Lorraine (Forsyth, loc. cit., pp. 32-40, nos. 25-30).
The Franciscan church of Neufchateau was built in the 1430s by the dukes of Lorraine. The workshop that produced the Entombment was comprised of the finest sculptors in the region and they also carved monuments at Domjulien, Charmes and Bayon. Two other female heads that have survived, one in the Louvre (Baron, loc. cit.) and the other in the Walters Art Gallery (Forsyth, op. cit., no. 28), that are attributed to the same workshop, share these characteristics of style and scale that suggest they came from the same hand as the present head.
The Franciscan church of Neufchateau was built in the 1430s by the dukes of Lorraine. The workshop that produced the Entombment was comprised of the finest sculptors in the region and they also carved monuments at Domjulien, Charmes and Bayon. Two other female heads that have survived, one in the Louvre (Baron, loc. cit.) and the other in the Walters Art Gallery (Forsyth, op. cit., no. 28), that are attributed to the same workshop, share these characteristics of style and scale that suggest they came from the same hand as the present head.