There is hardly fifty years between this purely idealistic conception and the beautiful, but completely mundane _Vierge de la Sainte Chapelle_ in the same collection. This magnificent figure is carved from one huge piece of ivory, and was probably the gift of St. Louis to his new chapel, about 1320. The masterly arrangement of the drapery and the exquisite finish make it one of the most celebrated ivories of the fourteenth century, but the old simplicity is quite gone, and the studied ease of the Virgin’s pose is chosen to give value to every line of drapery and figure. There is a feeling of movement in all her being, which, with the beautiful broken folds of the drapery has within it the germ of that restlessness which, rapidly increasing, became a painful fault in later Gothic sculpture. The colouring is very delicate, the pupils of the eyes are dark; the lips, which are just parting in a rather affected smile, are lightly touched with carmine, and a faint gilded border relieves the edges of the garments. The little seated figure of the Virgin in the Bargello (Fig. 29), is more direct and simple in design, and is probably of the last years of the thirteenth century. The curve in many of these figures has been put down to the shape of the tusk; this is no doubt the case in many examples, but the peculiar twist is first found in some of the stone figures of the Sainte Chapelle, where it seems to have been introduced as a contrast to the perpendicular shafts of the architecture, and the constant employment of this peculiar twist in the tiny figures of the ivory reliefs and in stone carving, proves it to be more a question of taste than necessity. [Illustration: ALINARI PHOTO.] [BARGELLO, FLORENCE 29. THE MADONNA AND CHILD Thirteenth century] In the Paris Exposition of 1900 two lovely ivory figures were placed together and formed a group of the Annunciation. They belong to different private collections,[24] and have been beautifully illustrated in the splendid series of photogravures of the treasures in the _Exposition retrospective de l’Art français_. Whether they are by the hand of the same craftsman seems a matter of doubt, as the technique of the drapery varies somewhat; but nothing can equal the exquisite softness of the Virgin’s robes and the dignified pose, worthy of the best work of the thirteenth century. The ideal and pathetic group of _The Descent from the Cross_ now in the Louvre (Fig. 30). It is strangely reminiscent in design, recalling the Byzantine rendering of the same subject in an eleventh century ivory, late in the Bonaffé Collection, in which the Virgin raises the hand of Christ to her lips with the same noble and restrained gesture, while His lifeless body slips helplessly down over the shoulder of Joseph of Arimathea. A similar group is sculptured in the Church of Le Bourget in Savoy, which is also useful in giving a clue to the fourth figure, which is evidently missing from the Louvre group.