Mourner from the Tomb of John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria (1443–45): Art, History and Details

Mourner from the Tomb of John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria (1443–45) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jean de la Huerta (Spanish, active Burgundy, 1431–62).

The work and its context

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

This monklike figure has a variously textured monochrome surface. Alabaster’s softness made it easy to carve details like the fabric and fur of the mourner’s robe and the codex pages in his hand. This is one of 40 mourners from an elaborate funeral procession beneath an intricately carved alabaster arcade. This mourner comes from the monastery of Champmol near Dijon, which became a primary burial place for Burgundian dukes. The sculpture was part of the tomb of John the Fearless (1371–1419), commissioned by his son Philip the Good (1396–1467), modeled after the earlier monument for Philip the Bold.

Object facts

• Title: Mourner from the Tomb of John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria
• Date: 1443–45
• Creator attribution: Jean de la Huerta (Spanish, active Burgundy, 1431–62)
• Culture: Spanish, Burgundy, Dijon, 15th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: salins alabaster
• Dimensions: Overall: 41 x 20.3 x 12.4 cm (16 1/8 x 8 x 4 7/8 in.)
• Collection: MED - Gothic
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1940.129

A detail from the museum

A plaster cast of this mourner adorns the Tomb of John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria in Dijon, France.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Musée des beaux-arts, Dijon
• Michault, Jean-Bernard. Explication des desseins des tombeaux des ducs de Bourgogne qui sont à la Chartreuse de Dijon: présentée à S.A.S. Mgr le Duc, le 1. mai 1736, par le Sr J.P. Gilquin. Nuys: Impr. de A. Migneret, 1736.
• Drouot, Henri. Le nombre des "pleurants" aux tombeaux des Ducs de Bourgogne. Paris: H. Champion, 1911.

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.