Imaging and Imagining the Black Madonna of Le Puy: Ritual, Sacred Images and Race in Late Medieval and Early Modern France Foster, Elisa Anne creator 2012 xvi, 306 p. born digital Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2012) Bonde, Sheila Director Muller, Jeffery Reader Remensnyder, Amy Reader Brown University. History of Art and Architecture sponsor theses This dissertation investigates the Virgin of Le Puy, a famous Black Madonna sculpture destroyed in 1794. It uses inventories, pilgrim badges, liturgical texts, written description and printed images to investigate the visual and affective aspects of the lost medieval statue and to examine the changing representations and functions of the statue and its reproductions from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. It addresses issues of memory, race and visual representation by challenging the notion that destroyed objects are irrevocably lost and do not merit scholarly concern. Surviving images of this statue depict the Virgin of Le Puy with both black and white skin, indicating that the visual identity of this object was in a state of flux during the early sixteenth century. This dissertation argues that the multiple representations of the Virgin of Le Puy signify the changing functions of ritual objects in the medieval and early modern contexts of urban processions, religious wars, and developing concepts of race. Virgin Mary Medieval Art RitualRaceProcessionsArt, MedievalMary, Blessed Virgin, Saint RPB 20121023 engEnglish10.7301/Z0C827MZIn CopyrightCollection is open for research.dissertations