Detail View: The AMICA Library: Mourner

The tomb at Bourges of Jean, duc de Berry (1340-1416), was begun by Jean de Cambrai and completed by Étienne Bobillet and Paul de Mosselman. For the duke's tomb, his life-size portrait-effigy was placed on top of a sarcophagus, with figures of mourners rendered in high relief along its sides. The idea of surrounding the tomb with such figures most likely derived from an early-thirteenth-century custom of attaching tokens of sorrowful remembrance of the deceased to his sarcophagus. Here the figures may represent specific members of the duke's family. The faces of the mourners are hidden by deep hoods, and their bodies are engulfed by the voluminous cloaks so typical of Burgundian sculpture. The duke's tomb was vandalized during the French Revolution, and the mourner figures were destroyed or dispersed. Of the original forty statuettes, only twenty-five survive, including this impressive example.