Biographies carved in wood: Turning points in the lives of two medieval Virgin sculptures

By comparing two medieval polychrome sculptures of a combined enthroned Virgin and nativity scene, important and hitherto unnoticed stages in their object biographies can be described. Provenance and attribution are addressed by virtue of stylistic and material comparisons, and the sculptures’ wider iconographic, social, historical and spatial contexts are outlined. The article demonstrates how conservation science investigations feed into knowledge regarding the sculptures’ material composition, use, transformation and treatment histories. Thus, the applicability of the conservator’s approach to examining objects and shedding light on wider historical contexts is outlined by virtue of this case study