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Henry Moore 1898-1986 Madonna and Child Studies, 1943 Signed and dated lower left and inscribed 'Top lighting' upper centre Pen, India ink, watercolour, coloured wax crayons and pencil on paper 7 ¼ x 6 7/8 in, 18.4 x 17.5 cm Provenance Pierre Loeb Gallery, Paris Lee Kolker, New York (acquired c.1950) Sale: Anon., Sotheby & Co., London, 16 December 1964, lot 127 Pita Kapnek, Johannesburg (acquired Sotheby & Co., London, 13 December 1967, lot 185) Vanderwoude Tananbaum Gallery, New York Private Collection (acquired from the above in January 1986) Literature Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore, Complete Drawings 1940-49, vol. 3, London, 2001, p.195, no.AG 43.102, illus. p.194 In 1943 Moore was commissioned to carve one of his most celebrated sculptures: the Madonna and Child for St. Matthew's Church, Northampton. Moore was at first reluctant, having not created any sculptures for almost two years. This drawing belongs to a series of important sketches Moore used when deciding whether or not to proceed with the project. Although hesitant, Moore was naturally excited by the commission involving the mother and child motif. 'From very early on,' he stated, 'I have had an obsession with the Mother and Child theme. It has been a universal theme from the beginning of time and some of the earliest sculptures we've found from the Neolithic Age are of a Mother and Child'. At this time Moore and his wife were trying for a family of their own which gave the subject a deeper personal significance for him. Yet, as acknowledged by Moore, the Madonna and Child has a certain quality that is not found in an image of the mother and child: `It's not easy to describe in words what this difference is, except by saying in general terms that the Madonna and Child should have an austerity and a nobility, and some touch of grandeur'. In this study he has emphasised the majestic pose of the Madonna who is imagined in imposing, strong terms, seated upright as she appears in the Northampton sculpture.

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