Mayfield
photo: Sarah McDonald
Mayfield Madonna
In the chapel of Mayfield School, a Catholic girl’s boarding school in East Sussex. To view it would take consent from the school reception team. The building used to be a high aristocratic archbishop’s palace; in 2007, Kim Woods[i] dated the sculpture to 1480-90, from the Burgundian court in Brussels, although the Victoria and Albert Museum in London evaluated it in 1946 and called it a 14th century English or Flemish work. Oak, 85cm high, originally polychrome (i.e. multicolored).
Though she may have been famous once, this is no longer a well-known Madonna and she is not accessible to the public because her home is a boarding school that looks like something straight out of Harry Potter! Nor is she generally called a Black Madonna. Nonetheless I list her here because Sarah McDonald, the mother of a Mayfield School alumnae, sent me these beautiful photos and information and pointed out that this statue is listed in Ean Begg’s index of Black Madonnas. Fair enough.
The Black Madonna stands guard at the tomb of Venerable Mother Cornelia Connelly, photo: Sarah McDonald
Ean Begg sites Frederick R. Gustafson, who includes Our Lady of Mayfield in his list of 13 famous Black Madonnas in the world.[ii] The wishful thinking of an Englishman?! I doubt she ever was that famous, since, according to Begg, the statue was kept for many years in a little wooden shrine in the grounds of the convent school until Sister Mary-Paul O’Connor “rescued it” and took it to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London for evaluation in 1946. After that, she was apparently appreciated a bit more and moved into the main chapel in the grounds.
The school was founded in 1863, by Venerable Mother Cornelia Connelly, who founded the Society of the Holy Child Jesus in 1846. She was an American born Presbyterian convert to Catholicism. Her very dramatic life story would make a great TV mini-series, exemplary for women struggling against the patriarchy. She surely needed a Black Madonna to help her in her resistance. Mother Connelly is proposed for sainthood. Pope John Paul II declaring her to be Venerable was the first step in that direction. The Duchess of Leeds bought the ruined palace for the nuns and, I imagine, paid for the extensive renovations.[iii]
photo: Sarah McDonald
Dr. Joanna Weddell, History of Art Department, Mayfield School, has this to say about the Mayfield Madonna (I summarized and added some details to the PDF file I was sent):
“There is an oral tradition that this imported Northern Renaissance sculpture was excavated from the grounds when the palace was restored by EW Pugin in 1863-6. The Child’s head and Virgin’s right hand were lost, and this would be consistent with iconoclastic damage during the English Reformation. On 12th November 1545, Archbishop Cranmer surrendered the Palace of Mayfield to Henry VIII as part of ‘the Great Exchange’. The statue was placed in its current position to the left of the altar during re-arrangements in 1951.
Mayfield School
The Madonna wears a crown as Queen of Heaven and stands on a crescent moon as the ‘Apocalyptic Virgin’: Revelation 12:1-2, “a woman robed with the sun, beneath her feet the moon and on her head a crown of twelve stars”. That she was originally polychromed is proven by the chalk gesso remains in the Madonna’s hairline. (Gesso is used on sculptures as a preparation and base for paint.)
The Christ child pulling on her mantle symbolizes his dependence on his mother. Her right hand, the lily (symbol of her purity), and the head of Baby Jesus were replaced by Hilary Pepler of nearby Ditchling, in 1934. In 1951, this Black Madonna received a new crown by Aelred Bartlett in the setting for the original one.”
As typical of Black Madonnas, the Mayfield Madonna has quite large hands. Her right hand points down to the earth. As Stephanie Georgieff comments in her book The Black Madonna: Mysterious Soul Companion, this hand position directs us to look back to the earth, our roots. Our Heavenly Mother points the way back to our Mother Earth! It’s good to hold the two together.
photo: Sarah McDonald
There is also a seated Madonna listed in Begg’s book. She is about 2 ft 6 inches high and situated in the school itself. The room is called the ‘courtyard’ as it was formerly an open space that had a roof added to it. This is not open to the public. According to above sited Dr. Weddell of Mayfield School, there has been some confusion over these two significant sculptures of Our Lady and their origins. Weddell corrects Begg by clarifying that the seated Madonna in the courtyard room, not the standing one in the chapel, was given to Mother Mary-Veronica, abbess of the Society of the Holy Child, in the late 19th century by the heir of the Rev. C. Walker of Brighton. The story of the Madonna needing rescuing from an outside wooden structure may also apply to this seated Lady.