Our Lady of Westminster - History

History

Most experts in the field agree that this image was carved in the Nottingham area in about 1450 from alabaster mined at nearby Chellaston, but the intervening 500 years until 1954 when she was found and bought in Paris by the dealer S.W. Wolsey, are largely a blank.

Throughout the period of their production Nottingham alabaster images were hugely popular in Europe and were exported in large quantities, some ending up as far afield as Iceland, Croatia and Poland. But by the far the greatest market for these images was in France, where even today some churches retain in situ their English Alabaster altarpieces. Indeed the trade continued up to and beyond the Reformation with the English ambassador to France reporting in January 1550 that three English ships had arrived laden with religious images to be sold in Rouen, Paris and beyond, this a year after Edward VI's Putting away of Books and Images Act 1549. So we may surmise that Our Lady of Westminster was exported to France some time between 1450 and 1550. It much larger than most English alabaster work; the commonest surviving alabasters are thin panels carved in high relief from series covering the Passion or Life of Christ which were framed and mounted as altarpieces.

The discovery in 1863 of a headless but stylistically almost identical alabaster image, buried in the churchyard of All Saints, Broughton-in Craven suggests that, as was apparently usually the case, the statue was a standard model repeated several times by the workshop, and probably produced for stock rather than upon receipt of a particular commission. Exports, as of the better documented contemporary export trade in icons of the Cretan school were usually made in bulk for sale to dealers, who then found buyers locally.

We can then surmise that Our Lady of Westminster remained to receive due honour in her French shrine until the upheaval of the French Revolution when much ecclesiastical property was destroyed and dispersed. She then passed into private collections and is noted as having been in the collection of Baron de St Leger Daguerre, from whence she was put up for sale in 1954 at the Exhibition des Chefs d'oeuvre de la Curiosite du Monde. It was there that the dealer S.W Wolsey saw and purchased her, she then came to the attention of Cardinal Griffin and the Dean of York Minster. A minor bidding war ensued with the former winning the day and Our Lady of Westminster was enthroned in Westminster Cathedral on 8 December 1955, to the accompaniment of the choir singing Salve Regina.

Furthermore, in 1963 whilst on a trip to Italy, the Westminster Choir school presented a copy of the statue of Our Lady of Westminster and booklet explaining the devotion to Pope John XXIII.