The Old fragments of The Blessed Virgin Mary at Tintern Abbey

Extracts from a Report on the Old Fragments by Dr. Nicola Coldstream, President of the British Archaeological Association, March 2006.

Among the worked stones in the stones collection are the remains of a statue of the Virgin and Child. It is a standing figure, with an integral plinth. Carved from stone similar to that used in the building, it is now in two pieces. The body and drapery are more or less complete, but the head is missing, together with parts of the shoulders. The left arm, supporting the Child, is damaged at the shoulder and cut off above the wrist. The right arm is cut off below the elbow. Enough remains of the Child to identify a small, seated, draped figure, but it has no head, torso or arms. The statue is not worked on the back, which suggests that it was placed in a niche or under a canopy.

The drapery of the statue is in the broad-fold style. The broad-fold style originated in Paris in the 1240s. The style reached England by the 1280s but owing to the destruction not only of stone sculptures but also of monumental ivories, comparisons are often difficult to make. The Tintern Virgin compares well with the statues of Eleanor of Castile at Geddington, Northamptonshire, and at Waltham Cross (the latter is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum).