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The Virgin enthroned and holding the blessing Child on her lap, the Virgin in Majesty, and the Virgin "Sedes Sapientiae" or "Theotocos" are all iconographic types frequent in Romanesque art. Traceable to pre-Romanesque prototypes like that at Conques, they were repeated everywhere in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, and especially in Auvergne. At times executed in precious metals, at times in polychromed wood, the Virgin is treated as a noble figure, distant and hieratic, the Child as a sober theologian, not a human infant; the pose is stiff and frontal and no imaginative detail is allowed to relieve the monotony of the straight-falling folds of the robes. The Louvre Virgin is already more lifelike: her face with its slightly petulant expression is more individualized, and the Infant hesitantly moves his legs.
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