UNKNOWN MASTER, French
(active mid-12th century in the Mosan region)

Virgin and Child

c. 1150
Carboniferous sandstone
Musée Curtius, Liège

The style of sculpture in the twelfth century in the Mosan region (valleys of the Meuse and Rhine, in present-day Belgium) can be described as goldsmithery in stone. The Virgin and Child (called Dom Rupert Virgin) is characteristic of this type of work. The Cologne goldsmiths' workshops were so important in the twelfth century that stone carving depended on them.