 The museum itself describes it as "unquestionably the most beautiful piece of ronde-bosse [in the round] ivory carving ever made", and the finest individual work of art in the wave of ivory sculpture coming out of Paris in the 13th and 14th centuries.After a relative shortage of ivory in Europe during the 11th and 12th centuries, the material once again became in abundance with new trade opening up on the Atlantic ports, particularly those of Normandy.The ivory workshops of Paris were the most admired ones, and the "Virgin and Child" must have originated from one of these.