French school of the 14th-15th century

French school of the 14th-15th century.
"Mourner's head".
Alabaster sculpture on wooden base.
Provenance: private collection, Madrid, Spain.
In good condition.
Measurements: 9 x 9 x 7 cm (sculpture); 22 cm (total height with pedestal).

The mourner's head or "pleurant" in tender continues the models used by Jean de Cambrai (Roupy, France, documented from 1375 to 1403 - Bourges, 1438) for the base of the tomb of the Duke of Berry. Cambrai's lavish funerary design was originally designed for the Saint Chapelle de Bourges (now disappeared) in 1403, although in 1757 it was dismembered and moved to the Cathedral of Bourges, being partially destroyed in 1793. Full body mourners, with which the head in tender presents remarkable parallels, surrounded the main structure of the tomb, establishing the iconographic tradition of the "pleurants", whose origins date back to the 13th century. The astonishment and curiosity aroused by these freestanding statuettes was due to the aura of mystery surrounding them: they were desolate men, in a posture of mourning and grief, covered with cloaks and hoods that partially veiled their faces. The tomb of the Duke of Berry, which included the recumbent figure of the duke dressed in ceremonial dress and surrounded by the ducal crown, with a chained bear with a fleur-de-lis at his feet, established this typology as a precedent. Consequently, this type of monument underwent a great development in the 15th century under the influence of the prestigious successes of Burgundian art, illustrated by the Tomb of Philip II the Bold (Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts).
Among the 29 mourners saved from destruction in 1793 (out of the total of 40 mourners that should have been in the original project), a group of five have in common that they were made in marble, like the sculpture being auctioned. These five mourners are currently kept in different museums: two of them in the Louvre Museum, while the other three in the Berry Museum in Bourges (two of them) and the last one in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.