Adoring Angel, Looking Left

From 1909 to 2002 this angel and its partner lived apart. Both seem to be side panels of one small shrine for the consecrated bread of the Mass, each angel in profile with arms crossed on the chest, turned toward the centre. The other one reached the Louvre in 1909. This one was bought on the Florence art market in the 1880s and kept by the family of a collector named de La Noue. It failed to sell at auction in Paris in 1974, and in 2001 it was withdrawn from a Christie's sale in London. In 2002 the Friends of the Louvre bought it from the family and gave it to the museum, 93 years after its pair arrived. Here the pointed top has survived, while the lower part of the pink robe has flaked away to the bare wood.