This is a guide to Moore's sculptures on public display throughout the world. We strive to ensure that all information is accurate, however we recommend that you contact each venue before making a visit. Please also contact us if you spot any mistakes. In some instances it has not been possible to source an image of the actual sculpture in-situ, and on such occasions an alternative image has been used.
bronze
height 13.8cm
There are two particular motives or subjects which I have constantly used in my sculpture in the last twenty years; they are the Reclining Figure idea and the Mother and Child idea. (Perhaps of the two the Mother and Child has been the more fundamental obsession.) I began thinking of the Madonna and Child for St. Matthew’s by considering in what ways a Madonna and Child differs from a carving of just a Mother and Child - that is, by considering how in my opinion, religious art differs from secular art.
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 (even hieratic aloofness) which is missing in the everyday 'Mother and Child' idea.
Church of S. Matthew, Northampton, 1893-1943, St Matthew's Church Northampton 1943