Nun Praying, ca. 1894

George Minnes's depiction of a praying nun, of which versions in wood and bronze are also known, was made in 1894. It is a striking example of Minnes's early symbolist oeuvre, in which his fascination with the visual language of medieval sculpture and book arts is expressed. In addition, like many of his works from the mid-1890s, it is strongly related to the atmosphere and characters in Maurice Maeterlinck's plays. Nun Praying announces later images such as John the Baptist (1895; inv. 1921-CH) and The Three Holy Women at the Tomb (1896; inv. 2016-GK). In purely formal terms, Nun Praying and John the Baptist are the closest to one another: in John the Baptist, Minne, after all, repeated the pose of the head and hands from Nun Praying . In each case, Minne strived for an expressive expression, whereby the deep grooves in the facial expression heighten the intensity of the representation. This graphic characteristic is also found in the sculpture The Three Holy Women at the Tomb. Comparable to the last-mentioned image is furthermore the type of woman, dressed in a hooded cloak, and the start of the folding trap, elements that Minne also worked out in drawings and illustrations in the same period and for which the pleurants were probably modelled that Claus Sluter made for the tomb of John the Fearless in Dijon.