Madonna of Bruges Replica with Saint Patrick Alter in the Background

See the previous photo for a discussion of the Saint Patrick Altar.

This is a bronze replica of the Madonna of Bruges sculpture by Michelangelo (1504). The original marble stature is in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium. From Wikipedia:

"The Madonna of Bruges is a marble sculpture by Michelangelo of Mary with the infant Jesus.

Michelangelo's depiction of the Madonna and Child differs significantly from earlier representations of the same subject, which tended to feature a pious Virgin smiling down on an infant held in her arms. Instead, Jesus stands upright, almost unsupported, only loosely restrained by Mary's left hand, and appears to be about to step away from his mother and into the world. Meanwhile, Mary does not cling to her son or even look at him, but gazes down and away, as if she knows already what is to be her son's fate. It is believed the work was originally intended for an altar piece. If this is so, then it would have been displayed facing slightly to the right and looking down.

Madonna and Child shares certain similarities with Michelangelo's Pietà, which was completed shortly before, mainly, the chiaroscuro pattern and the movement of the drapery. The long, oval face of Mary is also reminiscent of the Pietà.

The work is also notable in that it was the only sculpture by Michelangelo to leave Italy during his lifetime. It was bought by Giovanni and Alessandro Moscheroni (Mouscron), from a family of wealthy cloth merchants in Bruges, then one of the leading commercial cities in Europe. The sculpture was sold for 4,000 florin.

The sculpture was removed twice from Belgium after its initial arrival. The first was in 1794, after French Revolutionaries had conquered the Austrian Netherlands; the citizens of Bruges were ordered to ship it and several other valuable works of art to Paris. It was returned after Napoleon's defeat. The second removal was in 1944 with the retreat of German soldiers, who smuggled the sculpture to Germany enveloped in mattresses in a Red Cross lorry. It was found two years later and again returned. It now sits in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium. After the attack on Michelangelo's Pietà in 1972 the sculpture was placed behind bulletproof glass, and the public can only view it from 15 feet away."

A pdf file from Peter Hastings Falk tells the story of how Saint Paul the Apostle Church acquired a replica of the statue:

“The replica in the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York was likely cast in 1889, eighteen years before that in Edinburgh. This replica was the gift of Cecilia E. Smith Wentworth [1853-1933], an artist who was born in New York City to a Catholic family, attended the Sacred Heart Convent, but spent the rest of her life as an expatriate portrait painter living in Paris. She was so moved by the original masterpiece that she took up the single-minded cause of having a replica cast and brought to America. In 1889, she recruited James G. Blaine (Secretary of State from 1889 to 1892 under Benjamin Harrison) to champion her plea to the Belgian government to pressure the church to allow a mold to be taken so that she may donate a bronze replica to the newly-erected Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York. Blaine succeeded in fulfilling Wentworth’s wishes, and she contracted the Parisian foundry, Gruet, to produce a cast. She presented her gift to the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York in 1890. Father Joseph McSorley, the Paulist Superior General [1924-1929], wrote that “the only other replica is in France” but did not cite its location. It is likely that the second replica was cast by Gruet as part of the commission agreement and retained in Paris, but its whereabouts remains unknown. Ultimately, owing to two world wars, this second Gruet cast may well have been a victim of the common practice of melting down sculptures for military purposes. Initially, St. Paul’s parishioners expressed their discomfort with the depiction of a naked Christ Child and suggested placing a diaper about His waist. However, by the turn of the century the sculpture was universally admired. In the 1920s, Father McSorley wrote of the sculpture: “In its suggestion of divine untroubled strength, it is a fit embellishment for the fortress-like Church in which it stands” — a sentiment passed on years later in the writing of Superior General Father Henry Ignatius Stark [1940- 1946]. Today, the hands, feet, and knees of both Christ and Mary in this replica are heavily worn and shiny owing to 120 years of devotional kissing and rubbing.”

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