Medieval sculptures are notoriously hard to study. So often divorced from their original context and function by centuries of destruction, alteration or just neglect, the subtleties of their aesthetic impact, their meaning and their symbolic complexity are at times almost completely hidden from us, to be only loosely gleaned or reconstructed. Fortunately, this is not the case with the two beautiful pleurants — or mourners — in the collection of The Phoebus Foundation.

This edition of Phoebus Focus takes you on a journey of questions and discoveries: who were these men, for whom were they made, and why? Matthew Reeves tells the story of one of France’s richest princes, Jean de Berry (1340-1416), his profound love of art and the wondrous ways in which sculpture can be used to commemorate, move us to prayer, and serve political ends.

Medieval sculptures are notoriously hard to study. So often divorced from their original context and function by centuries of destruction, alteration or just neglect, the subtleties of their aesthetic impact, their meaning and their symbolic complexity are at times almost completely hidden from us, to be only loosely gleaned or reconstructed. Fortunately, this is not the case with the two beautiful pleurants — or mourners — in the collection of The Phoebus Foundation.