Local traditions and itinerant artists? : the Crucifixes of Auvergne and wooden sculpture in France during the late Romanesque period

Abstract

The paper focuses on the Romanesque wooden Crucifix of the church of Sainte-Marie at Cherier Le Vieux Bourg (Loire, Rhônes- Alpes, France). It is stylistically related to some other sculptures originating in the Massif Central region and, in particular, to a Christ from Herment in the Musée de Cluny (Cl. 2149), a Crucifix from Lavaudieu, now divided between the Musée du Louvre (head: r.f. 1662) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (body: 25.120.221), a head of Christ in the treasury of Clermont-Ferrand cathedral. Furthermore, the Cherier Crucifix appears to be connected to the Madonna and child statues – the most important being in the Metropolitan Museum of Art – attributed to a sculptor conventionally known as "The Morgan Master". Thus, these wooden sculptures are assumed to have been carved in the workshop of this anonymous master. Some comparisons with Romanesque stone sculpture in the Rhone Valley during the mid-twelfth century are made in order to place the Cherier Crucifix in a chronological and artistic context.