The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy

Sunday, January 23, 2011—Sunday, April 17, 2011
Gallery 340
Free Exhibition

This exhibition presents thirty-eight miniature mourners (approximately 14 inches high) from the arcaded sarcophagus of Duc Jean sans Peur. These mute monks express human grief more succinctly than any other late Gothic or early Renaissance sculptures. Carved by two sculptors, Jean de la Huerta and Antoine le Moiturier, they have, with several important exceptions, remained in Dijon since they were carved in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.


Organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, under the auspices of FRAME (French Regional and American Museum Exchange). The exhibition is supported by a leadership gift from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Florence Gould Foundation, the Eugene McDermott Foundation, Connie Goodyear Baron, and Boucheron. Major corporate support is provided by Bank of the West—Member BNP Paribas Group. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

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History of The Mourners

The elaborate tombs of the first Valois dukes of Burgundy, Philip the Bold and his son, John the Fearless, are among the masterpieces of late medieval sculpture in Europe. These monuments feature the sculpted figures of the deceased rulers lying in state atop the tombs, while below a procession of mourning figures appears to slip in and out of the arcades of a cloister. The mourners are intended to evoke the funeral processions of the dukes, events that brought together various elements of Burgundian society: nobility, clergy, and laypersons. They convey powerful emotion, some lost in thought or giving vent to their grief, and others consoling their neighbors. Mourning, they remind us, is a collective experience, common to all people and all moments in history.