From the lost Concublet chapel in San Francesco d'Assisi
The statue, currently located to the right of the altar in the church of the monastery of Sant'Anna, comes from the now destroyed chapel of Santa Maria del Gesù, erected by Countess Caterina Concublet in the church of San Francesco d'Assisi in Gerace in the mid-fifteenth century.
The work is part of a larger and more substantial late sixteenth-century restoration of the chapel, endorsed by bishop Vincenzo Bonardi. In addition to the client's coat of arms, the octagonal pedestal on which the figure of the Virgin with Child is placed bears an inscription which reports how the fifteenth-century chapel had been demolished and rearranged with new ornaments.
The statue has been linked to the Messina workshop of Lorenzo Calamech, confirming the close cultural and artistic ties of the Gerace patriciate and clergy with the Sicilian city.
Photogallery
