Fragment of a limestone tombstone with engraved... Lot 218

Fragment of a limestone tombstone with engraved decoration of a woman's bust. Almost the entire head and left shoulder of the figure are preserved; face framed by a veil and wimple; eyes with hemmed eyelids with ends stretched towards the temples, long straight nose and small mouth; part of the architectural frame consisting of a moulded arch with a red tooth furnished with a censer, a fine column with a leafy capital, a pinnacle and a dragon in the position of a gargoyle on the moulding; diamond-shaped coat of arms with a... and d... to the ermine quarter on the field. South-east of the Ile de France, Brie, last quarter of the 13th century Height: 46 cm - Width: 45 cm - Thickness: 9 cm Works consulted: A. Lefèvre, "Les baillis de la Brie" in Bibliothèque de l''Ecole des Chartes, Année 1860, 31, p186; J. Adhémar, "Les tombeaux de la collection Gaignières, dessins d'archéologie du XVIIe siècle" in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, July-September, 1974, p. 71. This fragment most probably represents the widow of Jean de Montigny, a knight who died in 1278 and whose tombstone was in the abbey of Preuilly (Seine-et-Marne). A survey carried out at the end of the 17th century from the collection Gaignières shows him in arms with his diamond-shaped shield of... and ... in the ermine quarter (fig.). His name appears in the archives among the bailiffs of Provins around 1270-71 and as a guard at fairs in 1277. There is little doubt that it is his wife, represented here as a widow with the veil and the wimple; one notices indeed the presence of a censer in the redent of the arcature, a detail visible on the drawing. The buildings of the Cistercian abbey of Preuilly, located about twenty kilometres from Provins, were transformed after the Revolution into a workshop for the manufacture of saltpetre and divided into several lots.