Published in La Imagen del Poder. Epifanías de la Potestas

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Among the works of medieval art preserved at the National Art Museum of Buenos Aires, there is an important medieval sculpture of the Virgin and Child in Majesty. This 12th century wooden sculpture from the French region of Auvergne exemplifies a type of carving that became very popular around the second half of that century: the so-called “Throne of Wisdom” or Sedes Sapientiae. Such sculptures were generally employed as reliquaries and hold special interest for the art historian since they mark the renaissance of sculpture in the round nearly five hundred years after this technique had fallen into disuse. How can we explain then, the transition from a period of nearly complete lack of sculpture in the round to one of increasing popularity of these same carvings? In this paper we propose that the same motives argued by ecclesiastical authorities to object tridimensional sculpture, later became the reason why these Sedes Sapientiae sculptures turned to be regarded as objects of a foremost devotional value and attracted a massive popular cult. The same nature of the sculptural technique (its tridimensional character), as well as the focus on its materiality, together with the inclusion of built-in relics, resulted in the “epiphanic character” that Jean Claude Schmitt has assigned to the medieval image. We believe that the sculpture in Buenos Aires, and other similar carvings, did not only succeed in representing a sacred body but even, in a certain way, to restore it.