HERITAGE TREASURES (Number 98

By Brian Andrews, Archdiocesan Heritage Officer

This statue of Our Lady of Colebrook is housed in the serene interior of St Patrick’s Church, Colebrook, a significant work by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–52), England’s greatest early-Victorian architect, designer and theorist. The building was extensively restored between 2006 and 2016.

Robert William Willson (1794–1866), first Bishop of Hobart Town and a close friend of Pugin, had a strong devotion to the Mother of God, placing the Virgin and Child in the Dexter field of his episcopal arms and dedicating his cathedral in her honour.

He owned a splendid Pugin-designed Marian triptych. It is fitting, therefore, that this beautiful statue should be in a Pugin church designed for Bishop Willson in 1843.

The statue was carved in 2008 by a community of contemplative nuns at Mougères in the south of France. They belong to the Monasteries of Bethlehem of the Assumption of the Virgin and of St Bruno, a vigorously growing new monastic congregation dating from 1967 and now widespread throughout Europe, North and South America and the Middle East.

Carved from French Oak, polychromed and gilded, it is entirely original but based on typical European iconography of the Virgin and Child dating from the late Middle Ages. The Virgin Mary is seated on a throne.

This thousand-year-old representation is known as Sedes Sapientiæ, or Seat of Wisdom, likening her to the Throne of Solomon, and referring to her status as a vessel of the Incarnation, carrying the Holy Child. In her right hand she holds an orb surmounted by a cross, symbolising Christ’s (the cross) dominion over the world (the orb).

The Divine Infant holds a bird. This iconography, to be found in late medieval representations, points to a legend of that period whereby when Christ was carrying His cross to Calvary a bird alighted on His shoulder and started pecking at the crown of thorns.

Thus, even as we gaze upon the Child, we are inevitably drawn towards contemplating the purpose and consummation of His mission, dying on the cross to redeem us.

We are reminded of the Jewish lineage of Christ and His Mother by the brown colour of their skin.