Mourners of Dijon

The Mourners of Dijon (pleurants of Dijon) are tomb sculptures made in Burgundy during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. They are part of a new iconographical tradition led by Claus Sluter that continued until the end of the fifteenth century. In this tradition, free-standing sculptures depict mourners who stand next to a bier or platform that holds a body in state. The figures are cloaked in robes which mostly hide their faces. The Dutch historian Johan Huizinga described the tomb as the "most profound expression of mourning known in art, a funeral march in stone." John the Fearless commissioned the pleurants for his tomb, stipulating that they resemble those on his father's Tomb of Philip the Bold.

Monument data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).