Maison de la Vierge à Niort (rue Saint-Jean)

This former boilermaker, built in 1840, at the corner of Rue Saint-Jean and Rue du Petit-Banc, has kept a Virgin and Child in a niche with neo-Gothic dais and sculpted by Crèchois Jean-Baptiste Baujault, author also of the «Jeune Gaulois criant Au Gui l'An neuf» whose plaster is today at the Bernard d'Agesci Museum in Niort and the marble in the central gallery of the Orsay Museum since 1979.
Placed at a crossroads, the Virgin of the house provides protection to the pilgrim who signs before her. She recalls that the Compostellan road follows the route of the Milky Way, a maternal and Marian symbol.
Marie is serious. Her hair is braided in the medieval way. The folds of the coat and the dress are of great regularity. Jesus, a smiling little adult sitting on his mother’s left palm, carries a globe.