MINIATURE STATUE OF THE VIRGIN MARY, CIRCA 1935
Depicting the Madonna, standing at prayer, with head bowed, her robe and halo of hammered finish on the reverse, the wooden prototype of similar design, unsigned, cased by Cartier (2)
Footnotes:
By family repute, this statue was purchased by the vendor's father in the 1960s as having once belonged to Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton and commissioned by her in 1936.

Once one of the wealthiest women in the world, Barbara Woolworth Hutton (1912–1979) was the grand-daughter of the retail tycoon, Frank Winfield Woolworth, famed for his vast chain of 'five and dime' stores. As the heiress to one-third of his estate, Hutton was in no shortage of attention. The press dubbed her, 'Poor Little Rich Girl', in response to her lavishly expensive debutante ball financed by her father in 1930. The purchase of this small and transportable devotional object coincided with perhaps the darkest period of her life due to her disastrous second marriage to Count Kurt Haugwitz-Reventlow, with whom she had her only child - a son named Lance. Precious jewels and objets once owned by Hutton resurface from time to time. Throughout her life, she was known to have an enormous collection and was also generous in the extreme, giving possessions and vast sums of money away, sometimes to perfect strangers.

Superficial wear in the form of light scratching. Nicks and dents around halo and circular base. Based stamped 18K. Wooden prototype has glue around base. Cartier case stamped Cartier, Made in France, 0067.