Mater Dolorosa (The Virgin Mary Mourning) (1897): Art, History and Details

Mater Dolorosa (The Virgin Mary Mourning) (1897) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Georges-Daniel de Monfreid (French, 1856–1929).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This fragment was once part of a larger sculpture carved in low relief, where sculpted elements are raised from a flat background. The full sculpture depicted Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary flanking Christ on the cross. This section is the only surviving portion of Georges-Daniel de Monfreid’s original composition. This work combines painting and sculpture and was described in De Monfreid’s lifetime as “a sculpture by a painter.” De Monfreid was a close friend of Paul Gauguin whose painting The Call (1943.392) also addressed the theme of spirituality in his work.

Object facts

• Title: Mater Dolorosa (The Virgin Mary Mourning)
• Date: 1897
• Creator attribution: Georges-Daniel de Monfreid (French, 1856–1929)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: painted plaster and wood
• Dimensions: Framed: 73.7 x 59.1 x 17.8 cm (29 x 23 1/4 x 7 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2002.54

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Recent Acquisitions Press Release,” June 25, 2002, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
• Picard, Pascale. Monfreid Sous le Soleil de Gauguin. Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editorial, 2022.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.