Madonna fra Kirkjubøur

Abstract

At Føroya Fornminnissavn in Tórshavn there is a carved Gothic figure of the Madonna (Figs. 2 and 4), which, though of exquisite quality, has received little attention from scholars. It comes from the parish-church at Kirkjubøur, which in
the Middle Ages was the cathedral of the Faroe Islands. A closely related Madonna figure (Figs. 1 and 3) was formerly in the Svenneby church in Bohuslán a part of Sweden which in the Middle Ages belonged to Norway. It has generally been assumed that this figure (now in the Historical Museum of Gothenburg) was of English origin. The author of the present paper however argues that if one of the figures has to be considered as English, then it is more reasonable to choose the figure from Kirkjubøur because of its outstanding quality, while the Svennebyfigure presumably is a Norwegian imitation. Wheen in 1959 the thick layers of plaster, which covered the Kirkjubøur statue, were removed a thorough inspection revealed that, although previously cleaned, the wood still bore traces of the original painted surface, sufficient to give an idea of the statue's very colourful appearance.