World War Two
In what year was Moore given a commission from the Church of St. Matthew, Northampton to carve a Madonna and Child?
Henry Moore
Henry Moore Northampton Madonna (art) St. Mary Help of Christians Church (Aiken, South Carolina) Sebastiano Florigerio
Henry_Moore-World_War_Two Northampton-Notable_buildings Madonna_(art)-Paintings_and_art St._Mary_Help_of_Christians_Church_(Aiken,_South_Carolina)-Gustave_Doré's_Madonna Sebastiano_Florigerio-Abstract
At the outbreak of the Second World War the Chelsea School of Art was evacuated to Northampton and Moore resigned his teaching post. During the war, Moore produced powerful drawings of Londoners sleeping in the London Underground while sheltering from the Blitz. Kenneth Clark, the chairman of the War Artists' Advisory Committee,WAAC, had previously tried to recruit Moore as a full-time salaried war artist and now agreed to purchase some of the shelter drewings and issued contracts for further examples. The shelter drawings WAAC acquired were completed between the autumn of 1940 and the spring of 1941 and are regarded as among the finest products of the WAAC scheme. In August 1941 WAAC commissioned Moore to drew miners working underground at the Wheldale Colliery in Yorkshire, where his father had worked at the start of the century. Whereas Moore drew the people in the shelters as passively waiting the all-clear he shows the miners aggressively working the coal-faces. These drawings helped to boost Moore's international reputation, particularly in America where examples were included in the WAAC "Britain at War" exhibition which toured North America throughout the war. After their Hampstead home was hit by bomb shrapnel in September 1940, Moore and Irina moved out of London to live in a farmhouse called Hoglands in the hamlet of Perry Green near Much Hadham, Hertfordshire. This was to become Moore's home and workshop for the rest of his life. Despite acquiring significant wealth later in life, Moore never felt the need to move to larger premises and, apart from the addition of a number of outbuildings and studios, the house changed little over the years. In 1943 he received a commission from the Church of St. Matthew, Northampton, to carve a Madonna and Child; this sculpture was the first in an important series of family-group sculptures.
Northampton's oldest standing building, The Holy Sepulchre, is one of the largest and best-preserved round churches in England. It was built in 1100 on the orders of the first Earl of Northampton, Simon de Senlis and based on a plan of the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Simon de Senlis also built Northampton Castle c. 1084, which was for many years one of the country's most important castles. It was a royal residence, held The Parliament of England many times, and was the site of royal tournaments and feasts. Thomas Becket was imprisoned there until he escaped. The castle suffered many fates and was eventually demolished for the train station. A postern, dismantled from its original position and rebuilt into a wall by the station, is all that remains. The current All Saints' Church was built on the site of a great Norman church, All Hallows, which was almost completely destroyed by the Great Fire of Northampton in 1675. All that remained was the medieval tower and the fine vaulted crypt, but by 1680 All Saints had been rebuilt, with the help of donations from all over England, including 1,000 tons of timber from King Charles II, whose statue can be seen above the portico. Famously, the poet John Clare liked to sit beneath the portico of the church. It is home to a choral foundation, with choral services sung every day by one of its choirs, who also record commercially and tour throughout the world. Other notable church buildings include Northampton Cathedral, the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Northampton and seat of the Bishop of Northampton; St Edmunds, which closed in 1978 and was demolished in 2007 (its bells are now in St Paul's Cathedral in Wellington); St Giles Church; St Matthew's in Phippsville, which was built between 1891-4, has a Henry Moore sculpture of the Madonna. Just south of the town centre Delapré Abbey, a former Cluniac nunnery, the County Records Office and site of the second Battle of Northampton, which was founded by Simon II de Senlis, the son of first Earl of Northampton, in 1145. At the edge of the Abbey, one of the three standing Eleanor crosses still remains, in memory of Eleanor of Castile, whose body rested here on its way to London. The original top of the monument has been knocked off and replaced several times from as early as 1460. St Andrew's Hospital, which opened 1838, and its new building William Wake House, is one of the largest neo-classical structures in England. Northampton & County Club, which was established in 1873, was also the old county hospital before becoming a private members' club; the cellars are medieval. Northampton Guildhall, which is Grade II* listed, was constructed mostly in the 1860s in Victorian Gothic architecture designed by Edward William Godwin, and extended in the 1990s.78 Derngate is a Grade II* listed Georgian Town House remodelled by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke in 1916–17. It contains notable Mackintosh interiors (which have been restored) and is his only major domestic commission outside Scotland. It is open to the public. The tall Express Lift Tower is a dominant feature and visible from most of the town. A Terry Wogan radio phone-in during the 1980s to came up with the name "Northampton Lighthouse" as Northampton is one of the furthest places from the sea. It is also known as the "Cobblers' Needle". It was built for testing new lifts at the Express Lifts factory, now closed. Though now redundant, it is a listed building. The former Greyfriars bus station served the town from 1976 until 2014. In the 2000s, it was featured on Channel 4's "Demolition" programme as the ugliest transport station in the United Kingdom and worthy of demolition. Demolition work will start in March 2014, following the move of bus services to North Gate bus station. 
There are a large number of articles on individual works of various sorts in :Category:Virgin Mary in art and its sub-category. The term "Madonna" is sometimes used to refer to representations of Mary that were not created by Italians. A small selection of examples include: "Golden Madonna of Essen", the earliest large-scale sculptural example in Western Europe and a precedent for the polychrome wooden processional sculptures of Romanesque France, a type known as Throne of Wisdom. "Madonna of humility" depicting a Madonna sitting on the ground, or low cushions "Madonna and Child", a painting by Duccio di Buoninsegna, from around the year 1300. "The Black Madonna of Częstochowa" ("Czarna Madonna" or "Matka Boska Częstochowska" in Polish) icon, which was, according to legend, painted by St. Luke the Evangelist on a cypress table top from the house of the Holy Family. "Madonna and Child with Flowers", possibly one of two works begun by the artist. "Madonna Eleusa" (of tenderness) has been depicted both in the Eastern and Western churches. "Madonna of the Steps", a relief by Michelangelo. "Madonna della seggiola", by Raphael "Madonna with the Long Neck", by Parmigianino. "The Madonna of Port Lligat", the name of two paintings by Salvador Dalí created in 1949 and 1950.  
The vestibule of St. Mary Help of Christians Church has a life-size bronze statue of the Madonna and Child by Gustave Doré. This statue, which was cast in the 1880s was donated to the Church in 1947 by Beatrice Kinney Lamantagne, another winter resident of Aiken.  
Sebastiano Florigerio was born in 1510 at Conegliano. He was a pupil of Pellegrino, and is thought to have married his daughter Aurelia. His first altar-piece was painted in 1525 for the church of Santa Maria di Villanuova, and in 1529 he painted, by commission, the altar-piece of "St. George and the Dragon" for the church of San Giorgio of Udine. Soon after this he went to Padua, where he painted the portal of the Palazzo del Capitaneo, and seems to have remained in that city until 1533. On his return to Udine he unhappily killed a man in a duel, and was obliged to flee for refuge to Cividale, which he was unable to leave until 1543. His death is believed to have occurred at Udine soon afterwards. The following are among his extant paintings: Padua. S. Bovo. "Deposition from the Cross, with Saints"; and a "Pieta". Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice. "The Conception, between SS. Roch and Sebastian"; "Madonna and Child, with St. Augustine and St. Monica" (painted for the Shoemakers' Guild at Udine); "St. Francis, St. Anthony, and St. John the Baptist" (painted for San Bovo at Padua); and "Madonna and Child enthroned, with St. John, St. Anthony, and St. Monica" (formerly in the Servi at Venice).  