Mary Mother of the Church

Today is the recently established feast of Mary Mother of the Church which is designed to reflect upon this title, formally assigned to Our Lady by Pope Paul VI during Vatican II.

The idea is not of course new and several late medieval artists created images of Mary as Mother of Mercy that can be seen to convey something of the same idea with Our Lady sheltering representative figures from the whole range of the faithful under her mantle. There is something about this iconography from Wikipedia at Virgin of Mercy

The Virgin of Mercy  

Painted in 1452 by Enguerrand Quarton (1410-66)

Image: Wikimedia

There is an account of Enguerrand Quarton, who was born in the north of France but who worked principally in Avignon and Provence, and of his work, again from Wikipedia, at Enguerrand Quarton

Another of his paintings, that of the Coronation of the Virgin, painted for a Charterhouse and now on display in a museum in Avignon, and discussed in the account of him linked to above, and painted about the same time or a year later, also used the same imagery of the faithful gathered around Our Lady as she is crowned by the Holy Trinity:

The Coronation of the Virgin painted by Enguerrand Quarton 1452-3

Image: Wikipedia