This devotional sculpture of the Virgin with Child, finely carved from ivory, was made in Portuguese-ruled Ceylon during the last decades of the sixteenth century, most likely in Colombo.[1] Raised on a carved ebony square stepped base—a locally derived, tiered and moulded pedestal known in Sanskrit as pīṭha (literally ‘seat’) —the figure is executed in a single piece of ivory, incorporating not only the crown on the Virgin’s head and the crescent moon at her feet, but also the figure of the Child Jesus, blessing with his right hand while holding the orb as Salvator Mundi with his left. Beautifully carved, this unusually large figurine (24.5 cm in height) displays the mastery for which the royal ivory carvers of Ceilão—as the Portuguese called the affluent island—were known and revered, most evident in the virtuoso folds of drapery and the sinuous hems, typical of this production. Alongside the characteristic stepped base, used locally as a pedestal for Hindu and Buddhist images (mūrti), the neck folds of both figures recall Buddhist devotional statuettes produced on the island before the arrival of the Portuguese in the early sixteenth century.

Emanating from an ivory-carving tradition swiftly harnessed by the Portuguese—whether by missionaries eager to commission images urgently required for the indoctrination of new converts, or even by courtly officials—the production of Catholic images in Ceylon achieved great fame and prestige throughout Asia, becoming the point of origin and centre of dissemination for an industry that, after the island’s loss to the Dutch in 1658, probably shifted to Goa. This important sculpture of the Virgin and Child—the Virgin firmly holding the Christ Child and crowned as the Queen of Heaven, still preserving traces of its original polychromy—stands apart from the more common Ceylonese productions, generally smaller and more schematic. Given its superior carving quality, it was most likely a specific commission for a religious institution in Portuguese-ruled Ceylon, or for a wealthy court official or prosperous merchant living within the Portuguese State of India. Although the iconography of the Virgin Mary is among the most frequent and subjects carved in ivory in Ceylon, works of this size and quality are rare. One of the finest examples, comparable to the present sculpture—measuring 32.5 cm in height, including its turned ivory moulded base—now belongs to the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore (inv. 2011-01506).[2]

[1] For this production, see Hugo Miguel Crespo, An Altar Tabernacle on the Life of the Child Jesus. Religious Ivories from Portuguese Ceylon, Lisbon, São Roque Antiguidades & Galeria de Arte, 2024.

[2] Crespo, An Altar Tabernacle, pp. 23-24, fig. 7.