This marble sculpture is a rare testimony to the beginnings of the Renaissance in Sicily, exalted in these lands by the chisel of a dynasty of genius sculptors: the Gagini.
This marble represents the Virgin standing and carrying the Child Jesus on her left arm. The latter, looking up at his mother, delicately places his left hand on Mary's heart, while with his right hand he takes hold of the orb, a sphere symbolising the universality of Christ's power and his temporal and spiritual domination over the world.
Due to its stylistic characteristics, this remarkably tender group should be compared with the work of Domenico Gagini (Bissone, 1425 ? - Palermo, 1492), an Italian sculptor trained by Filippo Brunelleschi, who worked mainly in Genoa and Sicily. Originally from Bissone, the Gagini family settled in Genoa in the early years of the 15th century.
Domenico was the first of his family to achieve international renown, and was one of a veritable dynasty of sculptors. After training in Florence, he returned to Genoa in 1447 to work on the dome of the Church of St John the Baptist, among other things. He then moved to Naples, where he entered the service of the King of Spain, before settling permanently in Sicily in 1463. It was on this island that he and his sons, Antonello and Antonio, in turn renowned sculptors, were to exert a considerable influence on local artistic life.
Some of these accents would endure in Sicilian sculpture until the second quarter of the 16th century through the more sophisticated and emphatic production of his son, Antonello. Preserved in perfect integrity, showing large areas of its original gilding and polychromy, this work was certainly commissioned by a family attached to the Sicilian elite to be incorporated into a large architectural monument or into the tabernacle of a chapel.

Full study and price upon request.