page_title: Beautiful Madonna of Toruń
section_title: Interesting facts
hierarchical_section_title: Beautiful Madonna of Toruń / Interesting facts
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Toruń, przy katedrze, Radosław Ociepa, 2000.
context_page_description: The Beautiful Madonna from Toruń - a Gothic sculpture depicting Mary and Infant Jesus. One of the most valuable, in terms of artistic value, images of the Madonna and Child made at the turn of the 14th and 15th century. In terms of typology and stylistics, this work is pars pro toto of the Beautiful Madonna, an iconographic type shaped before 1400. The sculpted images of Beautiful Madonnas represent the Beautiful style, a stylistic trend shaped during the Gothic period in Central Europe.
  Before World War II, the sculpture of the Beautiful Madonna was located in the church of St. John, the former parish church of the Old Town, now a cathedral of the Diocese of Toruń. At the end of the war it was stolen and removed by the Germans - the trace was ultimately lost. Only the original console with the bust of Moses, which was the basis for the statue, has been preserved to this day. A faithful copy made in 1956 by Witold Marciniak was put in place of the lost sculpture of Mary and the Child.
context_section_description: The cult of the Beautiful Madonna of Toruń did not cease after the loss of the original figure. The figure has become an iconic symbol in the culture of Toruń and social awareness. During the service celebrated by John Paul II at the airport in Toruń as part of the 7th Apostolic Journey around Poland on June 7, 1999, Karol Wojtyła received a replica of the Beautiful Madonna made by Tadeusz Porębski. As part of the first anniversary of John Paul II's visit to the cathedral, a statue of the Pope made by Radosław Ociepa was unveiled. It is the oldest of the five monuments of John Paul II in Toruń. It shows the Pope presenting the statue of the Beautiful Madonna of Toruń in his hands. There is a contemporary replica of the Toruń sculpture in the Basilica of St John the Baptist in Chojnice.
caption: Monument to John Paul II at the Toruń Cathedral
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