PAIR OF ADORATING ANGELS Siena, early 14th century... Lot 2

PAIR OF ADORATING ANGELS Siena, early 14th century Walnut H. 82 cm, W. 30 cm, D. 22 cm Our angels, sculpted in the round and mirrored to each other, form a pair, once arranged around an altar, at the interface between the celestial and the ecclesiastical liturgy. Descended from the heavens, they float on a cloud. Their wings have disappeared but their attributes are well preserved. They hold a large candle on one side, which serves as a candlestick, and wear small censer sticks of various shapes. Their gentle, jovial faces, framed by locks of hair twisted into thick curls disciplined by an antique-style tiara, suggest that they originated in Italy, in Siena. They are dressed in a blousy short-sleeved dress, animated by a play of apron-like pleats and piping that places our artist in the Pisano tradition (fig. 1). The angels carry out cultic and liturgical functions around the throne of God, whose messenger they are on Earth. Through their attributes, our two angels also echo the processional liturgy of the clerics in the church who, during the mass, flood the faithful with divine light and spread the purifying smoke of the censer over them. Cerofaries, they express the divine light. Thuriferous, they symbolize purification.