Golden Madonna of Essen

The Golden Mother of Good Counsel of Essen is the eldest Roman Catholic sculpture of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus. The image is a wooden core covered with sheets of thin gold leaf and is part of the treasury of Essen Cathedral in Germany. The statue measures 74 centimetres (29 inches) in height; at the base it is 27 centimetres (10.6 inches) wide.

Dated around the year 980 A.D.,it is both the oldest known sculpture of the Madonna and the oldest free-standing medieval sculpture north of the Alps, and is also one of the few major works of art to survive from Ottonian times. To this day it remains an object of veneration and symbol of identity for the population of the Ruhr Area. It is the only full-length survival from what appears to have been a common form of statue among the wealthiest churches and abbeys of 10th and 11th century Northern Europe.

Pope John XXIII issued a Pontifical decree titled Essendiæ in Urbe which named this image as Our Lady of Good Counsel and official Patroness of the Diocese of Essen on 8 July 1959. The decree was signed and notarized by the former Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Domenico Tardini.

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